“Someone went out the sea escape,” Javes said. “Who do you think it was, Chancellor?”
“I’m not here to think—” Chancellor Berle cut off at Javes’ silly ass smile. “You know what I mean.” She turned back to Suiden. “Prince Suiden, you must impress upon Vice Admiral Havram the seriousness of this mission and how we can’t afford to take little side trips as the whim takes him. Besides, Admiral Noal has ships out looking for whoever is left.” She indicated the windriders coming up fast. “I wouldn’t be surprised if one has been here and left already.”
“But if one hasn’t?” Suiden asked, handing his spyglass to First Lieutenant Falkin. “People and run goods aren’t the only things that can be smuggled, Sra Berle. Information also can sieve through, such as there’s an important delegation being sent to the Border that includes a chancellor, a Border ambassador, and the king’s nearest heir—”
“Not to mention His Royal Highness, nephew to the Amir of Tural,” Javes murmured as he swung his quiz glass by its ribbon. “Tell me, Suiden, how close are you to the Turalian succession?”
Suiden shot Javes a glance and then looked back at Chancellor Berle. “We’d be a tasty morsel to snap up, so the vice admiral is making sure our back is covered.” The captain turned to First Lieutenant Falkin, who had stood quiet throughout the exchange. “Have the boat put to, Sro Falkin, and be prepared to accompany me to the vice admiral’s ship.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Suiden turned back to Chancellor Berle. “The vice admiral’s compliments, Sra Berle, and he asks that you and Lord Esclaur please join him for dinner upon the Pearl Fisher.”
The chancellor’s wry smile swept across her face. “Please thank the vice admiral for his kind invitation and tell—signal him that I will most certainly attend; the pleasures of his last dinner party were beyond compare.” With that, she bowed and left the bridge, Esclaur trailing behind her. I went to follow, but Captain Suiden stopped me.
“A moment, Lieutenant Rabbit.” Suiden looked at Falkin. “Inform Ambassador Laurel of the vice admiral’s invitation, if you please, Sro Falkin.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Captain Suiden waited for his first officer to leave. He then looked back at me. “You’re not going but will stay here and attend to your duties.”
As my duties consisted mainly of adventures in meditation and rudimentary talent lessons with Laurel Faena, I gaped at my captain. “Sir?”
“First, though, you will report to Lieutenant Groskin.”
“Sir?” My eyes went wider.
“That is all, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”
Dazed, I left the quarterdeck, vaguely aware that Captain Javes had accompanied me.
“I understand that Captain Suiden waited an awfully long time while you palavered with your Uncle Havram,” Javes remarked as we reached the main deck of the ship.
Jerking my head around, I met his quiz glass aimed at me. I scowled but then thought better of it.
“Just so,” Javes said, his yellow wolf’s eye gleaming at me through his glass.
I tried politeness. “Whatever do you mean, sir?”
Javes had mercy and let his glass fall. “Your uncle fell on your neck like you were a long lost nephew—”
“I am, sir.”
“So you are. But you don’t know him any more than you knew your Uncle Maceal or your cousin Teram.” Javes gave me a serious look. “Kind words don’t necessarily mean a kind man, Rabbit. Do not jump at them like a goose at a currant, or else you may find your neck stretched across the chopping block.”
“But it may be just as he says, sir, that he misses my da and wants to get to know me.”
“That is also true.” Javes smiled, all affectation gone. “I know that it has been very hard for you these past weeks, with all the attachments you thought you had turned upside down or severed altogether. The lure of a place to hang words like ‘mine’ and ‘kin’ can be almost overwhelming.”
We started walking towards the railing. I caught a flash out of the side of my eye and I turned to look, but it was only Ryson rushing to the railing too. Javes and I stopped at the sound of retching, and changed course, heading towards the foredeck.
“It doesn’t help, sir, that everyone either wants to kill me, dismisses me as a provincial, or seems to have a hidden agenda,” I said. “Sometimes all three.”
“I suppose not.” Javes reverted to his silly bugger smile. “But that’s life when you’re royally connected, what?”
I judged it best not to answer that.
Javes’ smile faded as he watched the sea. “You’ve called Suiden a dragon—”
“Called, sir?”
“All right, he is a dragon, with fire and talons and everything. Like all dragons, he hoards things, but instead of obsessing over gold and jewels and whatnot, he has his troops.” Javes looked over the water, his face pensive. “I think that was what angered him the most about Groskin—and even Ryson. That Slevoic would dare to poach someone who was his.” He looked back at me. “You are also Suiden’s, Lieutenant, and he will not lose you. Not to some salt dog crying ‘Nephew.’ ”
“He doesn’t trust me to make the right decision, sir? To see the true from the false, no matter who claims me kin?”
“Of course he doesn’t. You are newly made a lieutenant, just out of your boyhood for all that you shave every morning. Not so long off the farm and fresh out of a little town in the northern marches where the fastest thing is the spring snowmelt running down the mountains.” Javes considered me. “To tell the truth, Rabbit, I’m surprised that you haven’t had your head turned by the heights you’ve ascended to recently.”
“Maybe, sir, it’s because my parents didn’t raise a fool.” I was distracted from the frown forming on Captain Javes’ face by the glower Chaplain Obruesk threw at me as he stalked by. “Though it may be also because there are those who do their best to make sure I know my place and to keep me there.”
Javes also tracked the chaplain, men turned back to me, his eyes glinting. “Your place? You’d push at God in the face of hell. Tell me, are all in the Border like you?”
I thought a moment. “Pretty much, sir.”
“I see.” Javes let out a long breath. “Then it should get very interesting when we arrive there.” With that, he nodded and strolled away, leaving me to seek out Groskin.
I found the lieutenant in, no surprise, the lieutenants’ berth. He had appropriated several lanterns, placing them around his open trunk, and had spread his gear out around him. He saw me and beckoned. “I haven’t had a chance to look over my stuff since we left the embassy, and I figured that I’d better make sure that there weren’t any of those damn spiders in my locker.”
I had started towards him, but at the mention of the possibility of Pale Deaths, I was back on the ladder at the fourth rung with no memory of rungs one through three.
Groskin gave a slight smile. “Don’t like spiders much, do you?”
“No,” I said as I sat down. “I understand their purpose in the grand scheme of things, but I don’t appreciate them up close and personal.”
“Well, not to worry. There aren’t any here.” Groskin started packing his gear away in the locker. “Where are your shadows?”
“Jeff’s indisposed.”
“In the head, huh?”
I nodded as I looked around, searching for my ghost companion. “What the navy considers breakfast gives him the gripes something fierce.” Something flickered in the corner. “And there’s Basel.”
Groskin looked over at the haunt, hesitated, then nodded. “Didn’t see you there, Basel.” He went back to packing. “I tell you, trooper, I miss your cooking.”
“Fiat,” I murmured.