The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(48)

The nearest skrayling cocked his head, tattooed brow creasing.

"He die?"

"Aye. Hurry!"

It was an exaggeration, but she couldn't think what else would persuade them to give her the chance she needed. A chance to talk some sense into Captain Hennaq, before Sandy was beyond her help.

Slow hours passed, and the sun was approaching its zenith by Coby's reckoning before the skraylings returned. There were only two of them this time, and neither was her friend from breakfast. Perhaps it was mere chance, or perhaps his small kindnesses to the prisoners had been noted.

She stumbled a little as they removed the ropes binding her to the upright beam, and noticed that they stepped backwards as if expecting this to be the first feint in an attack. They waited for her to steady herself against the pillar, then closed in and bound her wrists in front of her. Quite what they thought one lone youth could do against a shipful of men, she could not imagine.

On cue, Gabriel shouted after them, just as they had planned.

"Where are you taking her?"

The skraylings ignored him. Coby wondered how much English the sailors understood, and whether they had noticed that Gabriel had revealed her true sex. She hoped so. It would lend weight to the argument she was about to unfold.

Her escort led her up onto the weather deck as before. The sun was dazzling now, and hot as an English summer day. Coby squinted at the horizon, but it was as empty as ever. She wondered how far they were from land. Too far, that was for certain.

The captain's cabin was as dark as a cave after the sunlit deck, and she stood blinking for several moments as coloured shapes swam across her vision. Voices spoke in Vinlandic; the captain questioning her escort, perhaps? At last her vision cleared, but the sight that met her eyes was not encouraging.

Captain Hennaq stood on the opposite side of the cabin, his pose one of extreme formality: arms by his side, palms turned forward in a greeting that was barely more than an acknowledgement of her presence. One of the sailors pressed her shoulder, and she knelt on the matting. The captain gestured to his men, who backed off but did not leave.

"You asked to speak to me," Hennaq said in Tradetalk, his accent heavier than normal, as if deliberately straining her comprehension.

"Yes, sir. As one leader to another, I ask that you show mercy to my men."

"Your men?" Hennaq gave a hissing laugh. "You are but a boy."

"No, sir." She looked him in the eye. "I am a woman of my people."

She got to her feet and made a formal curtsey as best she could. It would hardly pass muster at court, but the skraylings were unlikely to know the difference.

"A woman?"

"I am sure you have searched our belongings by now. Did you not find women's clothing amongst them?"

"One of your party is an actor. How am I to know the clothes were not his? And if you are a woman, why do you not dress like one?"

"I…" She took a deep breath, and then another, as she had seen the actors do before going on stage. "Your physician, if you have one, may examine me to find the truth."

The captain gestured to one of the men, who left the cabin. The other sailor spoke to the captain. Coby wondered if he was relaying Gabriel's words. Perhaps so, since Hennaq nodded and looked at her more closely.

"Even if this is true," the captain said at last, "it is no proof you are their leader. I am not ignorant of human custom, here or in the New World."

"You concede that we English are ruled by a queen?"

"Of course. But no other woman sits on your great councils."

"True." She thought of Lady Frances Sidney. "But women serve our country in many ways, not always openly."

"Women like you."

"Yes."

"Is this why you pass yourself off as a man?"

"It is safer when travelling, especially in strange lands where I have few friends."

The cabin door opened, and the sailor entered with an older skrayling in dark blue robes, carrying a wooden workbox. The newcomer spoke to the captain in low tones, both of them eyeing Coby from time to time. She swallowed and pressed her shaking hands together. The physician.

"This is Elder Gaoh," the captain said. "He will examine you, as you have offered."

The old skrayling knelt down on the mat at her feet and opened his workbox. From it he took a bulbous glass flask, into which he poured a little liquid from a sealed ceramic bottle, and swirled it around. The liquid began to glow like a miniature sun. Lightwater, but stronger than any she had seen before. He held the lamp up to Coby's face and examined her skin through a lens set in a bone handle. Coby hardly dared to breathe. He lifted her upper lip to examine her teeth, and ran a thumb up and down her throat until she could not help but cough.

Next he unbuttoned her doublet. She trembled, fearing he was going to strip her, but he merely unfastened the neck of her shirt and lent close, sniffing delicately at the exposed flesh. Coby felt a blush rising from her throat at this strangely intimate gesture. Gaoh hummed to himself and refastened her clothing.

At last the physician gestured for her to show him her hands. He turned them over, examining front and back minutely, though for what she could not imagine. He said something to the captain in Vinlandic and put away his instruments. Coby breathed a sigh of relief, hardly able to believe she had avoided a more intimate exploration.