‘It’s important,’ Brexan said quietly.
‘I knew you were going say that. Of course, you think it’s important. You wouldn’t be sitting here with your guilty heart bleeding all over my charts if you thought it was a “daisy-run”. But let me share a secret with you: It’s not important to me or my crew!’
‘Actually, it is,’ she said, trying not to sound as desperate as she was. ‘Your life depends on it – all our lives depend on it. Without this trip, we will all die.’
‘We’re going to die up there anyway.’
‘Not just us,’ Brexan shouted, ‘all of us, every single person in Eldarn, everyone! That means your wife and family as well.’
Captain Ford lunged across the table and took her by the throat. ‘Don’t you dare mention my family, Brexan Carderic, not ever. Do you understand, spy?’ He spat out the word as if it were an obscenity.
‘They’re all going to die,’ she repeated, her eyes watering and her face flushing red. ‘I’m sorry.’
Trembling, Ford let her go, gulped the rest of his beer and rooted in the crate for a fifth. ‘Tell me-’ His voice was shaking; he took a long swallow before continuing, ‘Tell me how we’re all going to die.’
Brexan fell into her seat, gulped a mouthful herself and rubbed feeling back into her neck. Wiping tears from her face, she said, ‘The three frigates that shipped north from Orindale, you remember them?’
‘Apart from the naval cruisers, they were the only ships in the harbour left untouched by the storm.’
‘They’re shipping a stolen Larion artefact, something with the power to open the Fold and usher into Eldarn an evil so destructive that we will all be killed in an instant, or, worse still, enslaved forever in a foul, never-ending nightmare.’
‘Larion?’ he said, disbelieving.
‘It’s true, and the two men we picked up this morning have the power to destroy it and kill the man who’s stolen it. They can’t defeat him if the artefact is in operation; they don’t believe they could even get near it, but if we can arrive in Pellia before those frigates, Steven and Gilmour could be at the wharf when the stone table is transferred.’
‘And kill the thief before he has an opportunity to begin using this artefact?’
‘Exactly.’
‘So your friends, these magicians, are on their way to Pellia to kill another sorcerer?’
‘Yes.’ Brexan didn’t see any point in confusing the situation by telling him Steven was determined to save Mark Jenkins.
‘And all we have to do is to reach Pellia and get through the blockade with no cargo and no reason for being there so that your boys can be on the wharf when three ships carrying what looks to be a whole division of Prince Malagon’s soldiers pulls into port.’
‘That’s it.’
‘Have you forgotten that they left before we did? They have a significant head-start.’ Captain Ford had calmed enough to return to his supper and finished another mouthful before asking, ‘How will we get past them? The Northeast Channel is a rutting highway this Twinmoon. We’ll be held up just by the amount of traffic running through there, that’s if we get there in time to catch the northern tides. And while we might be able to put on all sorts of sail and run the channel faster than most other ships heading north, bullying our way through the archipelago is just another way to draw the attention of the Malakasian navy. It won’t fly, Brexan.’
‘It will if you hug the coast and skip the Northeast Channel.’
Captain Ford laughed, a great burst of genuine disbelief. ‘Oh, that’s a much better option,’ he said, almost choking. ‘You’ll avoid the edge of the blockade right enough, but Brexan, a rowboat can’t get through that way. We’ll be kedging off every mud flat and rock formation the gods saw fit to sprinkle along that coastline. Have you ever kedged off in a brig-sloop? I know it isn’t a very big boat, but hauling it over a sandbar, even with the capstan and the anchor-line, you realise it’s a touch heavy. And during this Twinmoon, the water is quite cold. So scurrying about out there in all that nasty mud, we’re bound to catch a sniffle or two.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘You’re talking about suicide.’
‘I’m talking about the end of life in Eldarn as we know it,’ she said, deadly serious.
If nothing else, she obviously believes wholeheartedly in what she was doing, he thought. ‘You lied to me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I liked you.’
‘I hope you might again some day.’
‘If I refuse, Garec will kill me and take the ship?’
‘He probably won’t kill you, but they will take the ship.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘You said that, and I’m sorry.’
Captain Ford sighed, letting his shoulders slump. He was tired and frightened. Considering Brexan in the lamplight, he said, ‘I’ve never been anything but… My wife and I are…’
Brexan closed the door latch; it slipped noisily into place: warped wood on warped wood. Turning to him, she pursed her lips and unfastened her tunic belt.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t need your sympathy, and as much as I might need your… company, I don’t want it. I want to-’
‘What do you want?’ she asked as she went on removing her clothes.
‘I want you to go.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ It was hard for him to say. ‘You don’t want this, and if you don’t want this, I certainly don’t want this.’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
You’re going to die, Brexan. Don’t thank me. I’d just as soon wear about, drop you with Nedra and make way, empty, for Southport and my family. This whole thing makes me want to run and hide.’
She buckled her tunic belt and finished her beer. ‘There is no place to hide.’
Captain Ford closed his eyes; it was easier if he didn’t have to look at her.
‘And I’ll make you a promise, not as a spy or a partisan or whatever you think I am, but as a scullery-maid and a friend of Nedra Daubert. I won’t lie to you again. It isn’t much, especially now, but I’ll be straight with you, about anything you ask.’
‘Do you find me attractive?’ Captain Ford murmured, unsure why he had asked, but hoping that perhaps chasing his emotions into this business might not have been an old man’s folly.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want to sleep with me?’
Now Brexan sighed. ‘No, but I will.’
‘Very well then.’ He ushered her to the door. ‘Thank you. You can tell the others we’ll make for Pellia.’
‘Thank you, Captain.’
‘Again, I don’t want you-’
Marrin Stonnel crashed through the hatch, catching his foot on the doorframe and tumbling to the deck. ‘Captain,’ he cried, frantic, shaking.
‘What is it, Marrin?’ Captain Ford’s demeanour changed in a heartbeat as he became again the man he had been before Brexan’s unexpected visit.
‘A ship, northwest of us, was running off the wind, but she must have caught sight of something, because she’s just jibed to cut us off.’
‘Horsecocks!’ Captain Ford pushed past Brexan into the companionway, giving orders as he went. ‘It’s probably a naval cutter, or a schooner, maybe. If they’re running full, it’ll be a close race. Douse every flame, every light, and dump a bucket over the galley brazier.’
‘The coals, Captain?’
‘We’re upwind, Marrin; we don’t want them smelling smoke.’ Ford paused at the hatch, briefly making eye-contact with Brexan. ‘I want us in the dark, as dark as you can make it. And no smoking, no leftover food, nothing. Make our course due west; I want us running for the Pragan coast like a shadow. We’ll heel to the bloody scuppers on this beam reach, but we need to be hull-down by dawn. With luck they’ll think we doused the lights to make a run past them to the north. This wind is tempting; lots of captains would try it.’
‘But we’ll turn west?’
‘Right,’ Ford said, ‘and even if they catch sight of us at sunrise, we’ll come about and put on every bit of sheet we’ve got and make a sprint up the Pragan coast. Now I need to talk to these sorcerers.’