I watched children racing along, the little cutpurses and beggars. How many of them had been sold already? How many would live long enough to grow into their lives? How many was I leaving behind?
“Green.”
I looked over at the Dancing Mistress and found my eyes full of tears.
“This is change, not death,” she said. “The path remains open before you.”
Then we spilled out onto the docks. Mother Vajpai was taken up onto the shoulders of Mother Adhiti. She stood there-a trick of balance I’d shown her, I realized with a strange, quirky pride-scanning the waterfront. A crowd gathered around us, ringing my escort of Blades with shouting faces. Someone tossed a rotten fish over the heads of the Blades. As I did not dare raise my hands to block the missile, it struck me with a wet, stinking slap.
Mother Vajpai jumped down and, using our battle code, called for fighting as needed but to cause no deaths. She then pointed east, curiously enough toward Arvani’s Pier. We hustled along as fruit, fish, and stones began to shower down. The women did not strike back, though they could have. Riot was unfolding in our wake.
I saw the purpose in Mother Vajpai’s plan quickly enough. The Blades took the base of the pier, where it met the waterfront, pushing the Dancing Mistress and me out onto the tongue of stone. A single handle scrambled ahead, forcing anyone working there up the gangplanks of the moored ships and effectively clearing our path.
“You will leap from the end.” Mother Vajpai pointed. “The Blades will stand over you as directed, but there you will be free of thrown cobblestones.”
“Thank you,” I said, though it seemed foolish.
“I suggest you speak quickly to whatever captain will listen first as you swim alongside.” Her face clouded. “I should hate to have you killed.”
“So would I.”
The Dancing Mistress took my hand. The sense of Mother Vajpai’s words must have been clear enough.
Followed by twelve archers, all women I knew, and some of them women I had been very close to indeed, the Dancing Mistress and I walked to the end of the dock. The rails of the dozen ships we passed were crowded with sailors, longshoremen, and idlers being harangued by panicked pursers and mates. The onlookers were all too busy laughing and jeering in the dozens of languages of the sea.
This show would be remembered in the taverns for years to come. I waved broadly, pretending a bravery I did not have.
Then we were at the end of the pier, and the women were driving us forward at arrow point without breaking stride. I went into the ocean with my teacher beside me, wondering if we would come up whole and how many dead-eyed monsters awaited us here.
Returning Once More
S OMEHOW I took in a mouthful of harbor water. It was foul-not just the throat-closing saltiness of the sea, but a mix of stagnation and bilge and whatever had flowed out of the bottom of Kalimpura as well. I found the surface and kicked hard to keep my head and shoulders in the air, spitting the whole time.
The Dancing Mistress struggled, though the tide was slack and there was almost no chop. I launched myself into her and tried to buoy her up. “Breathe!” I shouted in Petraean. “And do not thrash so!”
She calmed a bit. I tugged at her as I kicked in a backstroke toward the footing of the pier. Up along the top, I could see Mother Vajpai frowning at me. She was surrounded by drawn bows.
Time for a better plan, I thought. A ship was moored to the left, in the last tieup along Arvani’s Pier. She was a low, wide, open-topped coastal trader, in truth an overgrown longboat. Half a dozen Selistani men lounged at the taffrail. They stared as they passed a pipe.
The Dancing Mistress’ struggles slackened. Dragging her with me, I grasped hold of the ship’s rudder for support.
“Here,” I said to her, “hold on to this chain.”
“You there,” one of the men called down in Seliu. He spoke with a thick Bhopurti accent. “Hands off. You might break something.”
They all laughed at this wonderful joke. An arrow shot right in front of them to splash in the water beyond. The men and I looked at the pier to see Mother Vajpai there, shaking her head. Mother Gita winked at me.
So it truly was not the Blades’ desire that I die today. I drew some small comfort from this prospect. Even in the heat of the afternoon, I was shivering. The water wasn’t cold, but I was. The Dancing Mistress’ condition grew worse, shaking and coughing. I’d never before seen her frightened.
“Man, bring us aboard,” I said in my best imitation Bhopurti accent. Hiding the Stone Coast in my speech had been harder.
The leader glanced at the array of bowwomen, then back at me. His laughter was gone. “You are a danger, little boy.”
I had to get out of the water. “I am far more than a danger. I am an opportunity.”
“For what?”
“Bring us aboard, and I shall tell you.”
He looked at Mother Vajpai again. I saw her nod. Reluctantly, grumbling, his men threw down a pair of ropes. We both climbed in our sodden beggars’ cloth. Hands helped me over the rail, but they stayed well away from the Dancing Mistress.
I lay gratefully for a moment on the sun-warmed deck. My breathing was ragged and my heart raced, but I was no longer in danger of drowning. The Dancing Mistress coughed until she spewed, spraying her guts across the deck as the sailors jumped back cursing.
“Speak quickly,” the leader said. “I don’t like those arrows over there. I like you fouling my ship even less.”
After opening my mouth, I stopped. The truth would not impress a man like this, who probably worshipped his great-grandmother or some little crocodile god. I could not readily imagine a lie that would be convincing from me, ragged and wet at his feet.
So I stood.
“I will not tell you I’m no trouble,” I said. “But I will tell you I’m the kind of trouble you want.”
He laughed. “How’s that, little boy?”
“A boat like yours calls at ports all along the coast. Smart people sometimes think they don’t have to pay, right?”
Now his face closed, suspicion dawning. “It is happening.”
“I’ll face down any of your men. Any two of them. If I throw them to the deck, take me on as a tough to watch over your cargo and defeat your enemies.” I nudged the Dancing Mistress with my foot. “My friend here is allergic to water, but on a dry deck, dock or beach, she can fight all of you.”
She groaned miserably, but rolled over and showed him the claws of her left hand. He looked impressed, then laughed. “You are being a great fool, whatever else may be true.”
“I am the one it takes a dozen archers to keep at bay,” I said quietly. “And I cook very well.”
“Enough!” shouted Mother Vajpai from the docks. “There will be no fighting today.” She tossed a small leather sack on the deck. It clinked in a manner the captain seemed to find promising. “I will hire you to sail east, to Bhopura, if you leave now with all your hands. Especially the newest ones.”
He scooped the sack up and opened it. A greedy smile dawned. “We will be gone within the hour.”
The captain’s men put a boat over the side and rigged a tow line. That took much shouting and splashing. The vessel began to edge away from the dock. Mother Vajpai stood at the end of the pier, making the sign of the lily with her hands. Beside her, Mother Gita winked at me again.
Then we were turning away from the docks of Kalimpura. With much cursing and shouting, we headed out to sea.
Utavi, the captain of the little coastal trader Chittachai, agreed to sail us well east of the city, then out to sea and into the shipping lanes, where we would try to hail a vessel bound for the Stone Coast. The price of our passage paid by Mother Vajpai could probably have bought the entire boat.