Gently Bardolph explained, "Thus is always our way. Offenders are cast into the sea to begin life anew. Thus we speak of their future return."
"In the meantime," said Simone in a hushed voice, "they feed crabs and lobsters."
Bardolph nodded sadly. "The current is swift. Things on the bottom are swept out to sea. But you're right. No one in Buzzard's Bay eats shellfish. We chuck those to hogs."
"We sail on the tide. Our ship's the Conch of Corns, wherever that is. The master seems to know his stuff."
On the third floor of the Adventurers' Guildhall, Adira Strongheart and her crew packed bags and tied blanket rolls. Sister Wilemina, lacking her butchered braids, sat on a stool while Jasmine used borrowed scissors to trim her hair by her ears. Whistledove Kithkin stitched armholes in a newly bought sheepskin vest. Other preparations bustled.
Adira aired new knowledge and future plans to her lieutenant, Simone. "Just as well we hoist anchor. Our honeymoon as heroes will end soon. Some loudmouths will tar us with the same brush as Johan, claiming half the docks were burnt because of us. My, how fish blow bubbles! Never mind. I spent the night with Bardolph -"
"We know," interjected Simone with a grin.
"-trading tales over mugs. The man's closed as a clam, but I oiled his hinges with brandy. We seek Fulmar's Fort, which is a jumble of rocks above a swift river sixteen leagues south. Follow that inland to find the castle. Some folk visit the place, it might be. According to Bardolph, four times in the last three years a ship from the far west debarked men with a yellow cast to their faces. They don't say much and always march south at first light. Dock workers think they're foreign mercenaries. Where they go is a guess, but most reckon it's the castle."
"Can we beach at this pile of rocks?" As Adira's lieutenant, Simone often had to carry out impossible orders. "What of these pine people? Will they let us pass? Will they demand a tariff? How much?"
Adira flicked a callused hand. "None knows for sure. The pine people were gone for decades, then suddenly were back, lurking in the forest and taking trade goods for timber rights. Elders remembered their claim to the forest and respected it- mostly. One rough-cut logger said he'd be damned if he'd pay for trees and went in cutting where he willed. His whole crew was lost."
"Bonny." Simone the Siren lashed her oilskin jacket over her leather rucksack. "If we get past these murderous tree-toads, what then? Waltz up to this hag-mage's door and demand she hand Johan over for punishment?"
"Cheer up." Adira slung her saddlebags over her shoulder. "We might drown in a storm."
"Better than being ensorcelled into swine." Simone hefted her bag to go. "Did you pry out the name of our new enemy-to-be?"
"Oh, aye, but not till very late." Adira lowered her voice, for some of Bardolph's trepidation had carried with the name. "It's-Shauku."
"Hire a horse and ride 'round. Gather a crew. Have 'em fetch enough gear for a fortnight and bring all their cutting tools."
Captain Rimon, with a forked blond beard, was a big man who looked bigger in a quilted coat that stretched to his knees and a vest of mink with the fur turned inward. His vest was smattered with mackerel scales, but now he picked up a chip of cordwood to scrape them off. His audience was a fisherman with a crooked nose, sometimes his sailing master. This tiny cottage perched on rocks at the north of Buzzard's Bay, where many fisherman made their homes. A fishwife stood by her hearth not speaking, nor did she offer Rimon refreshment.
"Thank the Sea King that bald outlander washed up at our shore," Rimon went on. "No more fishin' for us. Once we sink Adira Strongheart, we'll split a goodly treasure, for she won't travel without one. With her breathing on the bottom, we'll be famous up and down the Storm Coast as folks to fear and can stick to corsairin' year round." He used the local polite term for pirating.
"If," said the sailing master.
"We'll sink her," insisted Rimon. "It's folks spreading stories that make her out a bold sea captain. She don't know nothin' about broaching the Storm Coast. We'll snare her like a duckhawk takes a duck. 'Sides, I got this."
The captain displayed a small nautilus shell hardly bigger than a walnut painted with black lacquer. The opening was sealed with wax.
"What's it do?" asked Crooked-Nose.
Rimon didn't know, so hedged. "It's powerful magic, be sure o' that. Now get gone. I'll see Drumfish outfitted. Tell the crew to be aboard by dawn."
Rimon tromped out in sea boots, letting in a gust of wind. The corsair with the crooked nose opened a chest to pack his spare shirts and stockings.
He asked his wife, "Where's Matty? It's time that boy learned real sailing. Sharin' treasure will see us through the winter."
"You'll not take Matty on this voyage." The fishwife's tight lips suggested no compromise. "Coin' to corsair is bad enough, but goin' after the woman Strongheart is plain foolish."
Crooked-Nose frowned. "It's just made-up stories they tell 'bout her. I never believe a tenth what I hear 'bout anyone."
"Neither do I," retorted the wife, "but if even a tenth of what's touted about Strongheart is true, she'll break Drumfish in half and hang Rimon's head from her spritchains-and yours too."
Chapter 12
"Is that a smile?" called Simone above a keening wind. High aloft, she and Adira toed a thin rope and leaned over a thick yard to furl a balky sail.
"I'm just glad to be at sea!" called Adira. "Even in this bathtub of a bay!"
"We have to make landfall some time!"
"Don't spoil my fun!" Yet Adira glanced at the distant coast called the Goat's Walk. Jagged rocks and cliffs were topped by dark pines. Surf exploded on hidden rocks, a deathtrap for any careless ship that careened too close. Yet despite an angry ocean and gloomy skies, Adira Strongheart laughed to feel a sturdy ship reel under her feet and wind blow in her hair, even if she weren't the ship's master.
The Conch of Corn's was a sturdy caravel like an upturned shoe with high castles fore and aft, buoyant as a cork and easy to maneuver, though it lost miles of steerage way to leeward. The ship carried four stubby masts, acres of gray-brown linen sails, and miles of yellow- and black-tar rigging. Low and stable, she was packed with timber, hides, and raw copper to be sold in Garaboss on the Cape of Hope at the bay's southern end, or else wrestled round the cape to southern cities like Kalan and Enez and Bryce.
Yet always the threatening coast trickled by to port, until secretly Adira cursed the benighted mission that would take them inland. Initially she had discounted local sailors' tales and hoped to land in a jolly boat at Fulmar's Fort. But unless the clashing surf and ugly rocks eased, beaching was impossible. Adira's Circle might have to stick with the ship and debark at Garaboss, then buy fresh mounts and backtrack eastward. Meanwhile, somewhere Johan's sedan train threaded that unrelenting forest, and only the gods knew what mischief he pursued.
Still, two days out of Buzzard's Bay, Adira Strongheart shrugged cares away and enjoyed a holiday. Her Circle of Seven had rated bargain passage because they could make sail-most, anyway. Sergeant Murdoch, late of Yerkoy's land-hugging infantry, hung head down over the gunwale strangling.
As the wind picked up, the sailing master had called to shorten sail, so Adira and Simone furled damp canvas. They'd shucked sea boots and climbed barefoot to better grip the toe rope, their only suspension sixty feet aloft.