a lord, with a fine house and fine things, and knowing he will keep his fine house and fine things, yes and knowing his wife may sleep safely at his side, and his kiddies in their beds as well.’ He took a measured sip of his wine and replaced the glass on the table. ‘That is kingdom enough for you and me, eh, Sorcor?’
‘Me? Me, too?’
There. It was reaching him at last. Kennit was proposing that Sorcor himself could have these things, not just Kennit. Kennit’s smile broadened. ‘Of course. Of course you, why not you?’ He permitted himself a deprecating laugh. ‘Sorcor, do you think I’d ask you to throw in with me as we have done before, would I ask you to risk everything alongside me, if all I had in mind were improving my own fortunes? Of course not! You’re not such a fool. No. What I have in mind is that together we shall reach for this fortune. And not just for ourselves, no. When we are done, all our crew will have benefited. And if Divvytown and the other Pirate Isles choose to follow us, they will benefit as well. But no man will be forced to throw in his hand with ours. No. It will be a free alliance of free men. So.’ He leaned forward across the table to his mate. ‘What say you?’
Sorcor blinked his eyes and looked aside from his captain’s gaze. But when he did so, he must look about the finely appointed room, on the carefully arrayed wealth Kennit had set out just for that reason. There was no spot in the room where the man’s eyes could rest without avarice awaking in his heart.
But in the depths of his soul, Sorcor was a more cautious sort than Kennit had given him credit. His dark eyes came back to lock gazes with Kennit’s pale ones. ‘You speak well. And I cannot think of a reason not to say yes. But I know that does not mean there isn’t a reason.’ He put his elbows on the table and leaned on his arms heavily. ‘Speak plainly. What must we do to bring these things about?’
‘Dare,’ said Kennit briefly. The licking flame of triumph he felt would not let him sit still. He had the man, even if Sorcor himself did not know it yet. He rose to pace the small cabin, wine glass in his hand. ‘First, we capture their imaginations and their admiration by what we dare to do. We amass wealth, yes, but we do it as no one has before. Look you, Sorcor. I need not show you a chart. All trade that comes from Jamaillia and the Southlands must pass us before it can reach Bingtown, or Chalced and the lands beyond. This is so?’
‘Of course.’ The mate’s brow furrowed in his effort to see where this obvious fact might lead. ‘A ship can’t get from Jamaillia to Bingtown, save that they pass the Pirate Isles. Unless they’re fool enough to go Outside and dare the Wild Sea.’
Kennit nodded agreement. ‘So ships and captains have but two choices. They can take the Outside Passage, where storms off the Wild Sea are fiercest and serpents thickest and the way is longest. Or they can risk the Inside Passage, with the tricky channels and currents and us pirates. Correct?’
‘Serpents, too,’ Sorcor insisted on pointing out. ‘Almost as many serpents haunt the Inside Passage as the Outside now.’
‘True. That’s true. Serpents, too,’ Kennit acceded easily. ‘Now. Imagine yourself a merchant skipper facing that choice. And a man comes to you and says, “Sir, for a fee, I can see you safely through the Inside Passage. I’ve a pilot who knows the channels and the currents like the back of his hand, and not a pirate will molest you on your way.” What would you say?’
‘What about the serpents?’ Sorcor demanded.
‘“And the serpents are no worse within the sheltered water of the passage than without, and a ship stands a better chance within them than if she’s on the Outside, battling both serpents and storms at once. And perhaps we’ll even have an escort ship for you, one full of skilled archers and laden with Baley’s Fire, and if serpents attack you, the escort will take them on while you escape.” What would you say, merchant skipper?’
Sorcor narrowed his eyes suspiciously. ‘I’d say, how much is this going to cost me?’
‘Exactly. And I’d name a fat price, but you’d be willing to pay it. Because you’d just add that fat price to your goods at the end of your run. Because you’d know you’d get through safe to sell those goods. Paying a fat price for that assurance is much better than sailing free and taking a big chance you’ll lose it all.’
‘Wouldn’t work,’ Sorcor declared.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the other pirates would kill you if you gave out the secret ways of our channels. Or they’d let you lead a fat ship in like a lamb to the slaughter, and then they’d fall on you both. Why should they sit back and let you have all the money?’
‘Because they’d get a cut of it, one and all. Every ship that came through would have to pay into a treasury and everyone would get a cut of that treasury. Plus, we’d make them promise that there’d be no more raids against us or our towns. Our folk could sleep peaceful at night, knowing that their daddies and brothers would be coming home safe to them, and that there’d be no Satrap’s boats coming to burn their towns and take them as slaves.’ He paused. ‘Look at us now. We waste our lives chasing their ships. When we do catch one, then it’s bloodshed and mayhem, and sometimes for naught. Sometimes the whole ship goes down, cargo and all, or sometimes we battle for hours and what do we get? A hold full of cheap cotton or some such rubbish. Meanwhile, the Satrap’s ships and soldiers are putting into our villages and towns, and rounding up everyone who doesn’t flee to be carted off as slaves, in revenge for our pirating. Now look at it my way. Instead of risking our lives to attack every tenth ship that comes through, and perhaps come up with nothing, we’d get a cut of every cargo on every ship that passed through our waters. We’d control it all. At no risk to our lives save what any sailor must face. Meanwhile, our homes and families are safe. The riches we garner, we keep to enjoy.’
An idea dawned slowly in Sorcor’s eyes. ‘And we’d say no slavers. We could cut the slave-trade’s throat. No slave-ships, no slavers could use the Inland Passage.’
Kennit knew a moment’s dismay. ‘But the fattest trade to be fleeced is the slave-trade ships. They’d be the ones that would pay the most to get through fast and easy, with their cargo alive and healthy still. What percentage of their wares do they get through…’
‘Men,’ Sorcor interrupted harshly. ‘Women and kiddies. Not wares. If you’d ever been inside one of those ships… and I don’t mean on the deck, I mean inside, chained up in a hold… you wouldn’t say “wares”. No. No slavers, Kennit. Slavers made us what we are. If we’re going to change that, then we start by doing to them what they done to us. We take their lives away. Besides. It’s not just that they’re evil. They bring the serpents. The stink of slave-ships is what lured the serpents into our channels in the first place. We get rid of the slave-ships, maybe the serpents will go, too. Hells, Cap’n, they lure the serpents right into our islands and ways, chumming them along with dead slaves. And they bring disease. They breed sickness in those holds full of poor wretches, sickness we never knew or had before. Every time a slave-ship ties up to take on water, they leave disease in their wake. No. No slavers.’
‘All right then,’ Kennit agreed mildly. ‘No slavers.’ He’d never suspected Sorcor had an idea in his skull, let alone that he’d felt so passionately about something. A miscalculation. He looked anew at his first mate. The man might have to be discarded. Not just yet, and perhaps not for some time. But at some point in the future, he might outlive his usefulness. Kennit decided he must keep that in mind, and make no long-range plans based on Sorcor’s skills. He smiled at him. ‘You are right, of course. I am sure there are many of our folk who will agree with you, and can be won over to us with such an idea.’ He nodded again as if considering it. ‘Yes. No slavers, then. But all of this, of course,
