Rose lifted his broad hand. "This is a matter of Imperial law."
"Law my jaw!" cried the woman. "What law's that?"
"The Law of Royal Conveyance, madam."
This quieted the crowd: they did not know what Royal Conveyance meant, but it sounded grand, and they wanted to hear more.
"Our mission is one of trade, of course," began Rose again, "but it is also a mission of peace. In Etherhorde we will be taking aboard a passenger of the highest importance to the Imperium: none other than Eberzam Isiq, His Supremacy's retired fleet admiral and new ambassador to Simja. It is there, in neutral waters, that Isiq will meet his counterpart, a Mzithrini ambassador, to negotiate a permanent peace between the empires."
Now the silence was one of profound awe.
Rose swept on: "The Treaty of Simja, the Great Peace, will mark a turning point for this Empire, and indeed for Alifros as a whole. In transporting Eberzam Isiq and his family, we must conduct ourselves as though transporting the Imperial Person himself. There will be a full honor guard, and every luxury and comfort for the distinguished passengers. And extra pay for all you tarboys. But alas, extra precautions, too. I am therefore ordered to recruit my sailors under direct supervision of the Ametrine Throne. No one above the level of tarboy is exempt."
"What about them bleedin' guns?" shouted someone. "My son ain't signed on as a powder monkey!"
Rose glanced sharply at the speaker. He looked to be on the verge of some quick retort. But the moment passed, and he spoke in the same soothing tone as before.
"The Chathrand sails in peace, but she was built for war-ancient and colossal war. Those cannon are relics. Truth be told, they were better housed in a museum than a gun deck. We keep but a few in working order: enough to defend ourselves from pirates. Fear not for your sons! I tell you I shall be as a father to my crew, and they as fathers to each of your boys. And of course, every letter of the Sailing Code will be respected."
"The letters, aye," said a quiet voice at Pazel's side. "But not the words."
Pazel turned. Beside him stood the smallest tarboy he had ever seen. His head, wound in a faded red turban, barely reached Pazel's shoulder. His voice was thin and rather squeaky, but there was a quickness about his fidgeting limbs, and a sharp gleam to his eye. He looked at Pazel and gave a mocking smile.
"Lies," he said. "If he's religious I'm a blister-toad. Just wait and see."
Rose praised the Sorrophran Shipworks, invoked the long life of the Emperor and then his little speech was over. No one cheered, but neither did they hiss or throw stones: how could they, when they had just been reminded in whose name the Chathrand sailed? Already the crowd looked resigned, and Pazel supposed that was all the captain hoped for.
With Rose limping in the lead, the group left the scaffold and made for the gangway, while above them the trumpets resumed their cacophonous blasting. Over the noise, Fiffengurt spoke to the boys again.
"Right, lads, who's for breakfast? The captain's party is dining in the wardroom, but we've a little welcome feast of our own on the berth deck. Come, let's eat while it's hot."
With a jerk of his head he started walking toward the gangway. The boys hesitated. One or two looked as if they might make a last bolt for freedom. Fiffengurt glanced over his shoulder, checked himself and walked back to the boys.
"Now then, lads, this won't do. You're all going to board that ship. And the only ones who should be afraid are them we have to truss up like chickens and carry in a sack. Now do honor to your names and follow me."
Reluctantly, they did. The gangway was long and steep, and their footsteps boomed eerily as if they were crossing a drawbridge over some shadowy moat. Shouts and laughter rang above them on the deck. Heart racing, Pazel gazed at the Chathrand's portholes (brass-fitted, beautiful), her gunports (how many per deck? He lost count at sixty), the scarlet rail sweeping away like a fence around a lord's estate, the shroud-lines joining the masts somewhere in the sky.
Up and up they marched. On the escutcheon, the ship's cast-iron nameplate, the ship's name blazed in gold letters three feet high. Beneath, in much smaller characters, ran an inscription. Pazel shielded his eyes and began to read:
Wyteralch, wadri, we: ke thandini ondrash, llemad.
Fiffengurt, climbing just ahead of him, stopped dead. The tramping boys halted in some confusion. The quartermaster stared at Pazel.
"Where'd you hear that, my cub?"
Only then did Pazel realize he had spoken the words aloud. He glanced from the nameplate to Fiffengurt and back again. "I–I just-"
Then it happened. The words of the inscription, which he had read effortlessly and quite without thinking, changed before his eyes. They softened like wax; they swirled, and finally
snapped into a new and definite shape:
CHATHRAND
Sorcerer, sultan, storm: never my masters, these.
No banner is so broad as my purpose,
No sea so deep as my builder's dream.
Night alone can claim me when it claims the earth.
Then dry shall I sleep in the under-depths
Beside my stolen children.
Pazel was so alarmed he nearly stumbled. The ship's name was still in Arquali, but beneath it ran a new inscription-no, the very same! — but in a tongue Pazel had never seen.
It's starting, he thought. It's starting again.
There it was: the throbbing in the back of his head, like the purr of some waking animal. Pazel gazed at the strange letters. He did not know the name of the language-but he could read it. Suddenly, perfectly. And in a burst of rage he knew what Chadfallow had done.
Fiffengurt trained his good eye on Pazel. "I know where it's written, cleverskins," he said. "But you were speaking Arquali just now."
"Was I?"
"You blary well know you were! Fancy enough for court. Who translated the Blessing for you?"
"I… I must have overheard someone," Pazel said. "On my old ship, maybe."
"Name?"
"The Eniel."
"Your name, lummox!"
"Pazel Pathkendle, sir!"
"Hmmph," said Fiffengurt. "Well, lads, Mr. Pathkendle has just recited the Builder's Blessing. All the old ships have 'em, some flimflam spoken by a mage or seer, or Rin knows who, before the ship ever touched the sea. Not all of them sound like blessings, as you just heard. Some are hexes, prophecies-curses, even, against those who'd do the ship harm. Nobody knows just what the Chathrand's builders had in mind. But listen close: we don't speak those words aboard her. Bad luck, that is, and Captain Rose won't stand for it."
He wagged a finger at Pazel. Then he gave another of his disorienting, over-your-shoulder smiles, and resumed the climb.
The Gift
1 Vaqrin 941
9:16 a.m.
Pazel's breath came short. The animal in his mind was waking, stretching, flexing its claws. He did not know what it was, or why it lived in the cave between his ears, but he knew what it did to him. It gave him language. And took language away.
His mother Suthinia was to blame. It happened at home in Ormael, just months before the Arquali invasion. Winter was breaking up in storms, and in such weather Suthinia was at her strangest and most disagreeable. She quarreled with Chadfallow, who came to dine and found Pazel and Neda chewing last year's wrinkled potatoes: Suthinia had been too distracted to go to market. At times she seemed almost mad. In electrical storms she climbed the roof and stood with arms outstretched, although Chadfallow swore that to do so was to provoke the lightning. The night she fought with Chadfallow, Pazel had lain awake, listening, but even in their fury the adults kept their voices low, and all he heard was one exceptionally desperate cry from his mother:
"What if they were yours, Ignus? You'd do just the same! You couldn't send them away into the night as they are, friendless, lost-"