The Dragon Round (Dragon #1)(15)

Solet says, “Is that it?”

“Yes,” the poth says.

“Let’s check one more place,” Solet says, “just in case.” He reaches for the thick floral brocade that extends from the deep vee of her collar. She covers her breasts. He taps her wrists. Resigned, she lowers her arms. He reaches behind the brocade and pulls from a pocket there a flat knife with a bone handle. He admires it. It’s like the full-size version of his finger blade. He pockets it.

“Is that it?” Solet says.

Again the poth says, “Yes.”

“Fool me once,” Solet says. “Hold her.” Two sailors stretch her by her arms and Solet runs his hands up each arm, over her back, belly, breasts, and broad, heavy hips, then from her crotch to her ankles. He finds no contraband. He and the crew might have taken a greater thrill from the search had her furious dignity not stiffened their hearts. The sailors let her go.

He says to Jeryon, “Pick up anything in the hold?” Jeryon yanks out his two pants pockets. They flap as uselessly as a spaniel’s ears.

Solet looks to Livion, who orders, “Put them in the dinghy.”

They’re led down to the starboard rail. The dinghy’s thwarts have been removed, as well as the collapsible mast, the rigging, and the rudder.

It seems so much larger, Jeryon thinks.

“It seems so small,” the poth mutters.

Jeryon offers the poth his hand. She refuses it, jumps into the dinghy, and kneels by the transom as he climbs in after her. He remains standing, the cords in his arms and his neck tensed. A sailor unties the painter and tosses it into the dinghy. It drifts away from the Comber.

Everlyn gets up, rocking the boat as little as possible, and stands behind Jeryon.

Jeryon says, “Livion, remember this. I don’t take chances. I plot a course, and I bring my boat in.”

“If you did take chances,” Livion says, “you wouldn’t have that one to bring in.”

Tuse descends to the rowers’ deck, Solet takes the oar, and Livion pipes. The oars extend from the galley like the legs of a crab. The ports have been reopened, but none of the rowers look at the dinghy. Livion pipes again. As the oars stroke for Hanosh, Beale comes to the rail. He can’t help it. He waves.

Jeryon calls out, “I still would have saved you.”





CHAPTER TWO


The Poth


1



* * *



I shouldn’t have saved him, Jeryon thinks. Now I’ll have to destroy him too.

Solet would happily kill for revenge. Ynessi love revenge so much they have songs celebrating it. They feature the most brutal and cunning slaughters, people and places, times and events. Children are taught the songs as much to learn about the city’s history as to learn about its mores. And you can dance to them. Because revenge leads to more revenge, songs are often parts of a cycle, and these are the basis for daylong, sometimes weeklong, parties.

Tuse would kill for revenge if he were drunk and angry enough.

Not Livion. He would take a slight as his due until someone told him what to do.

I’ll get my revenge the old-fashioned way, Jeryon thinks. Nothing threatens trade like mutiny, and trade is all the Trust and the city care about. The Trust will be his hammer and the law his anvil. He looks forward to seeing the fear in his mates’ eyes as they’re condemned. He looks forward to watching them struggle or, better, sit stunned as mullets while they’re carted through town and rowed to the gibbets, then listening to them scream as thirst gets its claws into them. It’ll take three days for them to die. Such is the essence of justice.

The poth settles against the transom, her knees pulled up, her smock tucked around them, her arms shrunken into her sleeves and wrapped around her calves. She feels unmoored in such an empty smock. And it will be a long, hot afternoon. She’s already thirsty. Who decided poths must wear dark green?

When the Comber is far enough away that Jeryon can no longer make out the crew on deck, he says, “There are two things you need to know, poth.”

“Sit,” Everlyn says.

“What?”

“Sit,” she says. “I like your shade, but not you looming over me like some shipowner on his parlor throne.”

He sits, pressing his spine as far into the bow as possible. If that’s how it’s going to be, let her squint, he thinks. She does.

“One,” Jeryon says, “here’s what stands between us and Hanosh. The nearest land is Eryn Point at the mouth of Joslin Bay, eighty nautical miles away. Hanosh is twenty beyond that. If we had oars, half a barrel of water, and the stamina of guilded rowers, we could make the trip in three days and see my mates tucked into their gibbets in four. Instead, we have the Tallan River.”

“What’s that?” she says.

He looks as if she’d asked, What’s air? “It’s a current. The current. How can you live in Hanosh and—”

“I’m not Hanoshi,” Everlyn says. “I’m Aydeni.”

“I know,” he says. “It’s the fault of you Aydeni that we’re here in the first place.”

She nearly stands. The dinghy rocks severely. She doesn’t care. “I’m here because I wouldn’t have a hand in your death.”

“You’re here,” Jeryon says, “because Ayden wouldn’t sell us its store of shield. At any price.”