The players fell somewhere between.
“I met him in a little village outside Maccia,” Kit said, leaning against the rail. “He wasn’t even an actor. He was apprentice to an ironmonger. We were playing The Sand Maiden’s Regret, only without the Sho-Sho part because we weren’t a full company. He started answering back. Heckling. Opal was furious, but the way he delivered his barbs… he had a talent for it. Big Emmath was with us back then. You never met him. Before your time. Went after the show and beat Smit bloody for disrespect. When he came back in the morning, he must have been half bruises. He offered his apologies, and I hired him. He’s been with us from that day to… well, not to this. Not any longer.”
“I liked him too,” Marcus said.
Kit scratched his beard. His expression was dour, but not grief-struck. “I think we became too sure of ourselves. There is a temptation, I find, after you’ve learned enough plays and poems, to think the world follows the same patterns. I’ve found precious few tales where the heroes ride the winds on dragon’s wings and then die from falling off a pier.”
“Comedies, maybe,” Marcus said, and immediately regretted the words.
Kit chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t find it so comic when it’s true. I suppose that’s often the case.”
“He might not be dead. People survive sacks. People survive being in boats that get swamped.”
Kit turned to face him. The old actor’s eyes were red from the sun, and perhaps from weeping. There was more grey at his temples now than when they’d first met. “Do they survive being associates of Cithrin bel Sarcour in a city that Geder Palliako has taken, do you think?” he asked gently.
“That’s less likely.”
“I thought so as well. We’ve lost players before, Marcus. I’ve found that’s part of the richness of the world. And its sorrow. I think the magic of my trade is that a part can be played by many people. The wise man. The lover. The curious voice in the wild. Even the enemy. Part of our work has been to step into those roles, find who we are within them, play them, and then put them aside for another to pick up and remake. In my time with it, the company has changed and changed and changed again.”
“You’re saying they’ll be all right with this? Cary and Mikel and the rest?”
“I don’t know. They may, or they may not. What Smit was to each of us was different. I’m saying that tragedy is also something we are familiar with. Sudden loss or slow, deserved or the world’s caprice. We will ache and we will mourn and we will also play at the next stop with the parts rearranged. Mikel and Hornet will take Smit’s lines, and people will laugh and weep just as they did before. We’ll find someone new. The roles remain the same. Unless we change them.”
“Suppose so,” Marcus said. A cry went up among the sailors, and the ship turned a degree, creaking. Gulls wheeled in the sky, their grey bodies too many to have traveled with the ship. The shore of Cabral was too far away to see from the deck, but it was close enough for the birds to find them.
“What about you?” Kit asked. “Are you and Yardem well?”
“I’ve got a lot of dead friends. Sorry Smit’s one, but…” He shrugged.
“And Cithrin? How is she?”
Marcus looked out into the water. He didn’t answer because he didn’t know.
She emerged from her cabin on the fourth day. He didn’t know who’d told her about the make-do war council, but just as the midday bells rang, she rose from belowdecks, Cary at her side. He told himself that the thinness of her face and the paleness of her skin were normal. The dark flesh under her eyes, he couldn’t pretend away. She walked across the deck unsteadily, as if she hadn’t become accustomed to the motion of the waves in the time since they’d fled. Maybe she hadn’t. He could imagine her lying in her hammock, sleepless, for days. A thin ache bloomed in his breast. This was his fault. His and the fat lizard lying on the deck of the farthest roundship. If he’d let the dragon sleep…
“Captain,” Cithrin said. Her voice was phlegmy.
“Magistra,” he said, nodding his head.
“I understand we’re deciding what to do from here.”
“Seemed better than drifting.”
“Thank you for arranging this.”
“Always think it goes better when people talk,” he said.
“No. All of this. Thank you for not letting me die in Porte Oliva. Or be sent back to him.”
When that happens, it will be because I’m already dead, Marcus thought. All he said was “It’s the job.”
Cary helped Cithrin to the swing, and they lowered her into the waiting ship’s boat. Yardem and Isadau were already there. Marcus went down last. They rowed to the flagship, such as it was, and went up one by one. Inys, it seemed, was not invited. Just as well.
The captain’s table was a thick slab of oak with ironwork legs bolted to the deck. Stools had been set for them all. Barriath Kalliam was already at his, and two of his fleet commanders besides. One was an old Tralgu with half his left ear missing who went by Chisn Rake, the other a Timzinae woman called Shark. Lord Skestinin sat chained in a corner, his wrists and ankles in manacles of steel and leather.
After they’d gone through the formality of welcome and taken seats, Marcus nodded at the captive. “Surprised to see the prisoner here. Not traditional to have the enemy present when you’re drawing up plans.”
“We do it differently in Antea,” Barriath said, but his half-smile made the joke clear. “Truth is I’m not entirely certain he’s an enemy. We’ve had the chance to talk more since we left port.”
“Still in chains, though,” Marcus said.
“Not entirely sure he’s a friend either,” Barriath said.
“Rude to speak as if I’m not present,” the older man said.
Marcus scowled, then touched his forehead. “My apologies. Didn’t mean to be rude.” The captive nodded his acceptance. Marcus didn’t like it, but if Barriath thought it was the right thing, he wasn’t in a position to say otherwise. The two men had shipped together for years, and Marcus was trusting the pirate admiral with more than that already.
“So,” Barriath said. “I’ve called this council for a reason. We’ve been moving slow. We’re only safe because we’re moving in force and we’ve got a dragon.”
Cithrin made a painful, raw sound, part laughter, part cough. Barriath raised his hand like the master of a dueling ground awarding a point before he went on. “Two more days, and we’ll be at the cape. The ships are provisioned, but the smaller ones weren’t built for long journeys. We need to decide where we’re going. And what happens next.”
The table went quiet. Yardem flicked his ear, his earring jingling. Shark coughed discreetly into her hand.
“Seems to me,” Chisn Rake said, folding his arms, “that we’ve got two options. We can take on the army that’s already rolled through half the world, or we can stock up and head for Far Syramys. Maybe find a nice island in between where we can eat fish and fruit until we all die of sloth and indolence.”
“Take it you’ve got a preference, father,” Yardem said.
“Damned right I do,” the older Tralgu growled.
“We’re not running,” Barriath said. “Palliako’s forces are stretched past thin. He can’t keep this up.”
“That’s what we said when they came to Porte Oliva,” Magistra Isadau said. “That’s why we thought we were safe.”
“We were safe,” Marcus said, “until someone opened the gates.”