The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(42)

Coby woke from a dream in which she was wrestling shadowy figures who jabbered incomprehensibly at her, only to discover it was not a dream. The skraylings seized her arms and legs, pinning her to the matting. She screamed, as much in fury as in terror, and kicked out. The grip on her right leg momentarily loosened, and she lashed out again. This time her foot connected with the skrayling's jaw, sending him tumbling across the matting onto the deck.
"Hendricks?"

It was Gabriel's voice.

Before she could answer him she was cuffed around the temple and her head snapped sideways, making her gasp and retch at the pain.

"Silence!"

She licked her lips and looked around for the speaker. In the shadowy confines of the hold, the tattooed faces looked too alike for her to distinguish individuals. What was this nightmare? Why had the skraylings turned on them?

The sailors hauled her to her feet and bound her hands in front of her. She could see Gabriel now, standing calmly defiant between his captors, his fair hair in disarray and a smear of blood across his chin.

"What…?"

A hand clamped over her mouth, rough fingers smelling of seaweed and tar.

"I say silent, you are silent," a voice growled in her ear. "See you it?"

She nodded as best she could.

"Good."

The voice barked orders in Vinlandic, and the captives were pushed out of their shelter into the blinding gaze of the sun.

They removed the sack, and Erishen spat pita fibres, blinking in the dim dusty light of the hold.

"What is this, Hennaq? Where are you taking me?"
He was tied to the main mast where it penetrated the hull, hands bound before him and ropes around his ankles, knees, hips and chest so that he could scarcely move. Beyond Hennaq, he could see the girl and the actor being helped down the ladder.

"Leave my English friends out of this," he said. "If any offence has been caused, I will bear the responsibility alone."

"It is a little late to take responsibility, Erishen." The captain leant close, hissing his name in his face. Erishen resisted the urge to return the gesture. Without fangs, it would be about as threatening as a child sticking out his tongue.

"Responsibility for what?" he said instead.

"You don't remember, do you?"

"There are many things I do not remember."

"I was but a boy when you first came to England, in proper shape–" Hennaq looked him up and down disdainfully "–and told the council how you were going to find our kin, stolen by the Birch Men long ago. I thought it a fool's errand, even then, but my heart-mate Tanijeel…"

Hennaq stood silent for a long moment, staring at something in his hand. Erishen grasped at the name, sought it amongst his shattered memories, but found nothing. The captain cleared his throat.

"Tanijeel was smitten with you: one of the oldest of our kind, who had walked with the stolen ones and spoken with the Birch Men, come to our humble settlement in a far-off land! He wanted to accompany you on your quest, but you would have none of it. He was heartbroken."

Erishen remembered now. A young man of perhaps eighteen or twenty summers, judging by the extent of his clan-marks, with bright eyes and a breathless enthusiasm that reminded him all too much of Kiiren.

"It was too dangerous."

Hennaq laughed sharply. "In that at least, you were correct."

"What happened?"

Hennaq stared at him, golden eyes full of hatred. "When you did not return, he went looking for you. The first time, when he came back empty-handed, I thought that would satisfy him. But he never gave up. The last time he went looking, he did not come back."

A sick feeling twisted Erishen's guts. "When was this?"

"Eleven years ago." Hennaq's eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason. What did you mean, you've changed your mind about our destination?"

Hennaq smiled. "I'm taking you home, honoured one. To Vinland."

"Vinland? What about my amayi? He is your cousin–"

"And many miles away. No. Too many have died already on this quest of yours."

Hennaq carefully unfastened the top two buttons of Erishen's doublet and loosened the neck of his shirt, then took something out of the pouch at his waist and held it up for Erishen to see.

"We found this in your baggage." He unfastened the spirit-guard and reached around behind Erishen's neck. "I cannot let you roam free."

"No!"

Coby did not struggle as they tied her to one of the upright timbers that supported the deck. The last thing she wanted was for them to bind her so tightly she had no chance of escape. But escape from a ship in the middle of the ocean required planning, and planning required time and a clear head.

To her relief Gabriel appeared to have come to the same conclusion, and was meekly standing against his post whilst the skraylings fetched another length of rope. Somewhere behind them, Sandy was talking to the captain and it didn't sound good. The captain was angry and upset by turns, and Sandy kept asking him questions, or so she guessed from his tone of voice. But if the captain was not interrogating his prisoner, what was he up to? Why bring them all this way, if he was not their ally? They must be near the coast of Africa by now…

She swallowed against the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, and glanced at Gabriel. Two healthy young people, fair of hair and skin, would fetch a high price in the slave markets of Moorish Africa. But on the other hand a shipful of skraylings was worth a hundred times that. Surely their captors would not risk enslavement themselves, just for the money they could get for her and Gabriel. Not if the reaction of the crew they had found on Corsica was anything to go by. It must be something else, then; something to do with Sandy and Kiiren and skrayling politics. Quite what, though, she could not fathom.