Red Seas Under Red Skies

"The complications of some previous malfeasance have come back to ensnare you," said Stragos. "Now leave. No more antidote and no more consultation. You extend your lease on fair health again only once you send panicked merchants to my gates, begging for help because death lurks beyond these harbours. Go now and do your job." He whirled and left without a further word. A moment later a squad of Eyes marched in through the main door and waited expectantly. "Well, damn," muttered Jean.

11

"We'll get the bastard," said Ezri as they lay together in her cabin that night. The Poison Orchid, now calling itself the Mercurial, was treading heavy seas about twenty miles south-west of Tal Verrar, and the two of them clung to one another as they rocked back and forth in the hammock.

"With difficulty," said Jean. "He won't see us now until we do some serious work on his behalf… and if we do that, we might push things to the point where he no longer needs us. We'll get a knife rather than an antidote. Or… if it comes to that, he'll get the knife—" "Jean, I don't want to hear that," she said. "Don't talk about it." "It's got to be faced, love—"

"I don't believe it," she said. "I don't. There's always a way to attack or a way to escape. That's the way it is out here." She rolled over on top of him and kissed him. "I told you not to give up, Jean Ta

"Sadly, poorly, miserably," she said. "I make everything so much better. It's why the gods put me here. Now stop moping and tell me something pleasant!" "Something pleasant?"

"Yeah, slackwit, I" ve heard that other lovers sometimes tell one another pleasant things when they're alone—" "Yes, but with you it's sort of on pain of death, isn't it?" "It could be. Let me find a sabre—"

"Ezri," he said with sudden seriousness. "Look — when this is over, Stragos and all, Leocanto and I might be… very rich men. If our other business in Tal Verrar goes well." "Not if," she said. "When."

"All right," he said. "When it does… you really could come with us. Leo and I spoke about it a bit. You don't have to choose one life or another, Ezri. You can just sort of… go on leave for a bit. We all could." "What do you mean?" "We could get a yacht," said Jean, "in Vel Virazzo, there's this place — the private marina, where all the swells keep their boats and barges. They usually have a few for sale, if you" ve got a few hundred solari on hand, which we intend to. We have to go to Vel Virazzo anyway, to sort of… finish our business. We could have a boat fitted out in a couple of days and then just… poke around a bit! Drift. Enjoy ourselves. Pretend to be useless gentlefolk for a while." "And come back to all this later, you mean?"

"Whenever you want," said Jean. "Have it as you like. You always get your way, don't you?

"Live on a yacht for a while with you and Leocanto," she said. "No offence, Jean, you're passable for a landsman, but by his own admission he couldn't con a shoe across a puddle of piss—" "What do you think we" d be bringing you along for, hmmm?"

"Well, I would have imagined that this had something to do with it," she said, moving her hands strategically to a more interesting location.

"Ah," he said, "and so it does, but you could sort of be honorary captain, too—" "Can I name the boat?" "As if you" d let anyone else do it!"

"All right," she whispered. "If that's the plan, that's the plan. We'll do it." "You really mean—"

"Hell," she said, "with just the swag we pulled from Salon Corbeau, everyone on this crew can stay drunk for months when we get back to the Ghostwinds. Zamira won't miss me for a while." They kissed. "Half a year." They kissed again. "Year or two, maybe."

"Always a way to attack," Jean mused between kisses, "always a way to escape."

"Of course," she whispered. "Hold fast, and sooner or later you'll always find what you're after."

12

Jaffrim Rodanov paced the quarterdeck of the Dread Sovereign in the silvery-orange light of earliest morning. They were bound north by west with the wind on the starboard quarter, about forty miles southwest of Tal Verrar. The seas were ru

Tal Verrar. Haifa day's sailing to the city thed'r avoided like a colony of slipski

"Captain," said Ydrena, appearing on deck with a chipped clay mug of her usual brandy-laced morning tea in one hand, "I don't mean to ruin a fine new morning—"

"You wouldn't be my first if I needed my arse kissed more than I needed my ship sailed."

"We made great time coming up, but now we've been a week out here without a lead, Captain."

"We've seen two dozen sail of merchants, luggers and pleasure-galleys just these past two days," said Rodanov, "and we have yet to see a naval ensign. There's still time to find her." "No quarrel with that logic, Captain. It's the finding her that's—" "A royal pain in the arse. I know."

"It's not as though she'll be roaming around a

"She can claim whatever name she likes," said Rodanov, "paint whatever she wants on her stern, mess with her sail plan until she looks like a constipated xebec, but she's only got one hull. A dark witchwood hull. And we've been seeing it for years." "All hulls are dark until you get awful close, Captain."

"Ydrena, if I had a better notion, believe me, we" d be pursuing it." He yawned and stretched, feeling the heavy muscles in his arms flex pleasantly. "Only word we've got is a few ships getting hit, and now Salon Corbeau. She's circling out here somewhere, keeping west. It's what I'd do — more sea room." "Aye," said Ydrena. "Such a very great deal of sea room."

"Ydrena," he said softly, "I" ve come a long way to break an oath and kill a friend. I'll go as far as it takes, and I'll haunt her wake as long as necessary. We'll quarter this sea until one of us finds the other." "Or the crew decides they" ve had—"

"It's a good long haul till we cross that line. In the meantime, double all our top-eyes by night. Triple them by day. We'll put half the fucking crew up the masts if we have to."

"New sail ahoy," called a voice from atop the foremast. The cry was passed back along the deck and Rodanov ran forward, unable to restrain himself. Thed'r heard the cry fifty times that week if thed'r heard it once, but each time might be the time. "Where away?" "Three points off the starboard bow!"

"Ydrena," Rodanov shouted, "set more canvas! Straight for the sighting! Helm, bring us about north-north-east on the starboard tack!"

Whatever the sighting was, the Dread Sovereign was at home in wind and waters like this; her size and weight allowed her to crash through waves that would steal speed from lighter vessels. They would close with the sighting very soon.

Still, the minutes passed interminably. They came about to their new course, seizing the power of the wind now blowing from just abaft their starboard beam. Rodanov prowled the forecastle, waiting— "Captain Rodanov! She's a two-master, sir! Say again, two masts!" "Very good," he shouted. "Ydrena! First mate to the forecastle!"

She was there in a minute, pale-blonde hair fluttering in the breeze. She tossed back the last of her morning tea as she arrived.