"He's got no power to push, if pushing's what comes to his mind," said Zamira. "I call the deed well done. Doesn't mean you can lounge around in those fancy clothes all evening, though. Get them stowed again." "Of course… Captain."
"And whether or not the Shopbreaker bites his tongue, I think it best to keep you two out of sight for the rest of our time here. You're both confined to the ship." "What? But—"
"I believe," said Drakasha in an amused but firm tone of voice, "that it might not be wise to let a pair such as you off the leash too frequently. I'll give you a little something extra from the ship's purse for your trouble."
"Oh, fair enough." Kosta began removing the more delicate components of his fine costume. "I suppose I" ve no particular urge to get my throat slit in an alley, anyway."
"Wise lad." Zamira turned to Delmastro. "Del, let's get a list together for tonight's Merry Watch. They can go ashore with us when we head in for the council. Let's say… half the ship's company. Make it fair."
"Right," said Del. "And until we come back from that meeting, they can wait in the boats, conveniently watching for trouble, can't they?" "Exactly," said Zamira. "Same as all the other crews, I expect."
"Captain," Del whispered almost into Zamira's ear, "what the hell is this meeting about?"
"Bad business, Ezri." She glanced at Leocanto and Jerome, smiling and joking with one another, oblivious to her scrutiny. "Bad if it's true. Bad if it's not."
She put an arm around Ezri's shoulder; this young woman who'd turned her back on life as a pampered Nicoran aristocrat, who'd risen from scrub watch to first mate, who'd nearly been killed a dozen times in half that many years to keep Zamira's precious Orchid afloat. "Some of the things you'll hear tonight concern Valora. I can't guess what you two have spoken of in private… in those rare interludes where you two spend your private moments speaking—" Ezri thrust out her chin, smiled, and didn't deign to blush. "-but what I have to say may not please you."
"If there's anything to be settled between us," said Ezri softly, "I trust him to settle it. And I'm not afraid to hear anything."
"My Ezri," said Zamira. "Well then, let's get dressed to go and meet the relations. Armour and sabres. Oil your scabbards and whet your knives. We might need the tools to make some parting arguments if the conversation goes poorly."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Points of Decision
1
A mile of lonely beach separates Port Prodigal from the ruins of its fallen stone sentineclass="underline" Castana Voressa, Fort Glorious.
Built to dominate the northern side of the bay serving Port Glorious before a shift in the fortunes of the Ghostwinds brought an equivalent change to the city's name, the fort would not now suffice to ward off an attack with vulgar language, let alone the blades and arrows of a hostile force.
To say that it was constructed cheaply would be an injustice to skinflint stonemasons; several whole shiploads of Verrari granite blocks were diverted into the home-building trade for wine money by bored officials far from home. Grand plans for walls and towers became grand plans for a wall, and finally modest plans for a smaller wall with barracks, and as a capstone to the entire affair the garrison of soldiers intended for those barracks was lost in transit to a summer's-end storm.
The only useful remnant of the fort is a circular stone pavilion about fifty yards offshore, linked to the main ruins by a wide stone causeway. This was intended to be a platform for catapults, but none ever came. Nowadays, when the pirate captains of Port Prodigal call a council to discuss their affairs, this pavilion is always the place and dusk is always the time. Here the captains do business in private, standing on the stones of a Verrari empire that never was, atop the frustrated ambitions of a city-state that had nonetheless frustrated their own ambitions seven years before.
2
It began as every such meeting Zamira could remember: under the purple-red sky of sunset, with lanterns set out atop the old stones, with the humid air thick as an animal's breath and the biting insects out in force.
There was no wine, no food and no sitting when the council of captains was called. Sitting only made people more inclined to waste time. Discomfort stripped sentiment from everyone's words and brought them to the heart of their problems with haste.
To Zamira's surprise, she and Ezri were the last to arrive. Zamira glanced around at her fellow captains, nodding cordially as she eyed them all in turn.
First there was Rodanov, armed now, with his first mate Ydrena Koros, a trim blonde woman only slightly taller than Ezri. She had the poise of a professional duellist and a reputation with the wide-bladed Jereshti scimitar.
Beside them stood Pierro Strozzi, an amiable bald fellow pushing fifty, waited on by his lieutenant, called Ear-Taker Jack for what he liked to slice from the heads of his fallen foes. It was said that he tanned them and sewed them into elaborate necklaces, which he kept locked in his cabin.
Ranee was there, with Valterro at her shoulder as usual. The right side of Ranee's jaw was several wince-inducing shades of black and green, but she was standing on her own two feet and at least had the courtesy not to glare at Zamira when she thought Zamira was watching.
Last but not least was Jacquelaine Colvard, the so-called "Old Woman of the Ghostwinds", still elegant in her mid-sixties, if grey-haired and sun-scorched like old leather. Her current protege, and therefore lover, was Maressa Vicente, whose fighting and sailing qualities were not yet generally known. The young woman certainly looked capable enough.
Until one of them walked away, then, they were effectively sealed off here from the rest of the world. Parties from their crews, about half a dozen from each ship, mingled uneasily at the end of the causeway. No one else would be permitted to walk upon it until they finished. So, Zamira thought, how will we do this?
"Zamira," said Rodanov, "you're the one who called the council. Let's hear what's on your mind." Straight to the action, then.
"Not so much on my mind, Jaffrirn, as on all of our heads. I have evidence that the Archon of Tal Verrar may have inconvenient plans for us once again."
"Once again?" Rodanov made fists of his huge hands. "It was Bonaire who had the inconvenient plans, Zamira; we should have expected Stragos to do what any one of us would have done in his place—"
"I haven't forgotten so much as a day of that war, Jaffrim." Zamira felt her hackles rise despite her determination to be patient. "You know very well that I" ve come to call it a mistake."
"The Lost Cause," snorted Rodanov. "More like the Dumb Fucking Idea. Would that you" d seen it for folly at the time!"
"Would that you" d done more than talk at the time," said Strozzi mildly. "Talked and sailed away when the Archon's fleet darkened the horizon."
"I never joined your damned Armada, Pierro. I offered to try to draw some of his ships off, and that much I did. Without my help you" d have lost the weather gauge sooner and been flanked from the north. Chavon and I would be the only captains standing here—"
"Stand off," shouted Zamira. "I called the council, and I have more to tell. I didn't bring us here to salt old wounds." "Speak on," said Strozzi.
"A month ago a brig left Tal Verrar. Her captain stole her from the Sword Marina."
There was a general outburst of muttering and head-shaking at that. Zamira smiled before continuing: "For crew, he sneaked into the Windward Rock and emptied a vault full of prisoners. His intention, and theirs, was to sail south and join us in Port Prodigal. To fly the red flag."
"Who could steal one of the Archon's ships from a guarded harbour?" Rodanov spoke as if he only half-believed the possibility. "I'd like to meet him." "You have," said Zamira. "His name is Orrin Ravelle."