The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(47)

"Something I learned on campaign."

"How's your head, by the way?"

"Don't ask." Mal finished dressing and strapped on his sword belt. "Come on, let's find a serving wench. I need breakfast."

CHAPTER XIII

Coby spent a sleepless night considering and discarding half a hundred plans for escape. Unfortunately most of them depended on the ship being in harbour, and there was no way of knowing how near or far that day might be. Even if the skraylings were taking them back to London, it could be another week or more. And the alternative, that they were being taken to the New World, did not bear thinking about. Her body already ached in every joint from being immobilised; how she would endure days or weeks of it, she did not know.

Her own suffering was a small thing, though, compared to Sandy. Late in the evening two of the sailors had come down to the hold to check on the prisoners and give them a little water to drink. As they had lifted Sandy's head to try and force some water between his lips, Coby had caught a glimpse of metal at his throat. The spirit-guard. She had seen what happened when he wore it for more than a few hours a night. And now he was likely to be wearing it for weeks. She had failed in her duty to Mal twice over.

By the time the sun rose, she was dizzy with hunger and lack of sleep, but still determined to find a way out of their predicament. When she heard movement above and feet on the ladder, she instantly roused. To her left, Gabriel stirred against his own bonds. She waited, heart pounding.

Half a dozen skrayling sailors entered the hold, came straight over to the two younger prisoners and began untying their bonds. Coby would have fallen if one of them hadn't caught her, wedging his shoulder under her armpit and wrapping both of his arms about her waist. Even as she slumped with her chin on the skrayling's shoulder, a small part of her mind reflected that this would be a good opportunity to relieve the sailor of his belt-knife. Of course it would be a lot easier if she had any feeling in her limbs.

The sailor tried to walk her to the ladder, but her legs were not her own and refused to obey. He gave up and sat her on a pile of empty sacks with a growled warning not to move. It was hardly necessary. She lay sprawled like a discarded doll, biting back tears as the feeling began to return to her limbs in a flood of fire.

She looked across at Gabriel, who was being led up and down the deck with his arms round the shoulders of two of the skraylings. They looked like a trio of drunks on their way home from the alehouse, and she would have smiled if it had not been for their dire situation. Instead she chafed her hands and feet and endured the pain.

One of the other sailors brought them cornbread and watered aniig. By the time Coby had broken her fast, her strength was beginning to return. The skraylings appeared to have anticipated this, however, and stood ready with staves to beat the prisoners back. They had still not untied Sandy, she noticed, though they had attempted to feed him; not an easy task since he was the best part of a foot taller than any of them.

A shadow fell across her lap and she looked up to see a skrayling standing over her. She recognised him by the pattern of beads in his hair as the one who had supported her weight when she was untied. He held out his hand.

"You walk," he said. "See sky."

She was not about to turn down a chance at a walk in the fresh air, so she reached out and let him help her up.

"Thank you."

It was slow, painful going, climbing first one ladder to the gun deck and then a second to the weather deck, and by the time she emerged into the sunlight she was shaking like a man with the ague. She slumped against her guide once more, squinting against the brightness and trying to take stock of her surroundings. Beyond the ship's rail, dark blue waters stretched as far as the eye could see. She turned her head, but the view was no different. No chance of escape here.

After a short walk around the deck and a visit to the jakes – a tiny, well-scrubbed cabin in the bow – it was time to go back to the hold. At the bottom of the ladder she shook off her guard and stumbled over to Sandy. His eyes were unfocused, and he was mumbling under his breath.

"Sandy?"

His eyes sought hers. "Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days, and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenances of the children that eat of the portion of the King's meat: and as thou seest, deal with thy servants."

"Which servants?" It was a verse from the Old Testament, she was certain, but she could not place it.

"And the King said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream."

"Daniel," she cried. "You speak of King Nebuchadnezzar, in the book of Daniel."

Sandy lifted his head, staring fixedly at the underside of the deck above.

"And at the ninth hour," he said, his voice rising to a wail, "Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"

"Hush, Sandy, be still!" She glanced back over her shoulder, expecting the skraylings to haul her away any moment. "He hasn't forsaken us. Sandy, trust Him. We will be delivered, like Daniel. I swear it."

Sandy ceased his moaning, subsiding into glazed-eyed silence. With a heavy heart she allowed the skraylings to lead her back to the wooden pillar.

"Need I talk to high-fellah," she told them as they secured her once more. "Erishen-tuur is sick, go die soon."