of him. ‘Kennit!’ cried a voice aloud. ‘Captain Kennit! Kennit!’ Others took up the cry until the summer air rang with his name. Like a beast stirred from licking itself, the mob turned faces towards him and then surged at him like an oncoming wave.
‘Courage. And smile!’ taunted the wizardwood face.
He himself felt his sardonic grin was set in ice upon his features. His heart pounded and the sweat started down his back at the sight of the mob coming towards him, fists and mugs raised to the sky. But they could not see that. No. All they would see as they closed on him was that small smile and how straight and fearless he stood as they engulfed him. A bluff, perhaps, but a bluff only worked so long as the user believed it would. In vain he tried to pick out Sorcor’s face in that oncoming wave of humanity. He wanted to find him, and, if necessity dictated it, make sure he at least died before Kennit did.
Instead the folk ringed him, their faces flushed red with both drink and apparent triumph. None, as yet, dared to touch him. They stood a respectful distance from his fists and every eye was on him. He let his gaze rove over them, looking for a weakness or for the aggressor who would strike the first blow. Instead a burly woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd ringing him, to stand before him, her meaty fists on her generous hips. ‘I’m Tayella,’ she announced in a clear and powerful voice. ‘I run Askew.’ Her eyes met his as if he might challenge that declaration. Then, to his astonishment, her eyes flooded suddenly with tears. They spilled unabashedly down her cheeks as she added in a voice that suddenly broke, ‘And I tell you that anything here is yours, yours for the asking. Anything, any time. For you have brought us our own, whom we never thought to see again!’
Trust the luck. He returned her smile, and with his most gallant bow and silent heartfelt regrets for the wasted lace, offered her his handkerchief. She took it from him as if it were embroidered with gold. ‘How did you know?’ she asked brokenly. ‘How could you have guessed? One and all, we were astonished.’
‘I have my ways,’ he assured her. He wondered what it was he was supposed to have known. But he did not ask, did not even flinch when her hand fell on his shoulder with a whack surely meant to be welcoming.
‘Set out a fresh table and all our best. Make way for Captain Kennit! Bless the man who delivered our kin and our neighbours from slavers, and brought them here to join us in freedom and a new life. Bless the man!’
They swept him forward in a triumphant wave, to seat him at a sticky table and then heap it high with baked fish and some kind of starchy cakes made from a pounded root. A bucket of clam soup thickened with seaweed completed the festive meal. Tayella joined him there, to pour him a wooden bowl of a wine they had contrived from a sour berry. He supposed that as it was the only wine in the town, it was also the best. He tried a sip of it and managed not to wince. Tayella seemed to have had a quantity of it already. He judged it most politic to sip at his wine and let her regale him with the town’s history. He scarcely glanced at the man when Sorcor came to join them. The swarthy old dog looked chastened, somehow. Humbled with amazement. To Kennit’s appalled amusement, he carried the swaddled child marked with the X. The mother hovered not far away.
Tayella rose, to clamber up on top of the table and address the company at large.
‘Twelve long years ago,’ she intoned, ‘we were brought here. In chains and sick and half-dead, some of us. The ocean blessed us with a storm like to a hurricane. Shoved the ship right up this channel, where no slaver had ever come before or since, and run her aground. The pounding the ship took loosened a lot of things. Including a staple that secured a whole string of slave fetters. Even with our hands and feet still bound, we killed those Chalcedean bastards. And we freed our companions and we made this place our own. Not such a great place, no, but once anyone’s been in the hold of a slaver, anywhere else is Sa’s own paradise. We learned to live here, we learned to use the ship’s boats to fish, in time we even ventured out to let others know we were here. But we knew we could never go home. Our families, our village was lost to us for ever.’ She turned suddenly to point down at Kennit. ‘Until you brought it back to us today.’
In consternation, he waited while she wiped more tears on his handkerchief. ‘Twelve years ago,’ she managed at last. ‘When they came to take us because we could not pay the Satrap’s taxes, I fought them. They killed my husband and took me, but my little girl ran away. And I never thought to see her again, let alone my grandson.’ She gestured fondly at Sorcor and little Sorcor. More tears welled up and choked her.
It took her a bit, and soon other folk chimed in to help her and tell their own stories. By the most powerful of coincidences, most of the slaves on board the Fortune had come from the same village as had the original founders of Askew. But no one there believed it a coincidence. All, even dour Sorcor, credited him with deducing it and deciding to bring them here to be reunited with their kin. He had not. But Kennit knew it was not mere coincidence, but something far more powerful.
Sheerest luck. His luck. Luck to be trusted and never questioned. Casually he smoothed a finger over the wizardwood charm at his wrist. Would he scorn such luck by disdaining this chance? Of course not. Such luck demanded he dare to be worthy of it. He decided he dared. Shyly, so humbly, he asked Tayella, ‘Have my men told you of the prophecy I received from the Others?’
Tayella’s eyes widened. She sensed something immense to come. Like a widening ring of ripples, her silence spread. All eyes turned toward him. ‘I have heard something of what was said,’ she said cautiously.
As if overcome, Kennit cast his eyes down. He let his voice drop deep, and said softly, ‘Here it begins.’ Then he drew a deeper breath and brought the words up from the depths of himself, powering them with his lungs. ‘Here it begins!’ he announced, and contrived to make it sound as if it were an honour he was bestowing on them.
It worked. All about him, eyes shone with tears. Tayella shook her head in slow disbelief. ‘But what have we to offer you?’ she asked, almost brokenly. ‘We are a village with next to nothing. No fields to till, no grand houses. How does a king begin here?’
Kennit put gentleness into his voice. ‘I begin as you begin. With a ship, which we have taken for you. With a crew, which I have trained for you. Work the ship. I shall leave Rafo here to teach you the ways of the Raven flag. Take whatever you will from whoever passes, and make it your own. Remember how the Satrap took all from you, and do not be ashamed to reclaim your wealth from the merchants of Jamaillia that he cossets with your blood.’ He glanced at the shining gaze of his first mate and was inspired. ‘But I warn you. Suffer no slaver to pass unchallenged. Send the crews to the serpents who will welcome them, and gather their ships here. Of all cargo that is aboard these ships, I give Askew a full half. A full half!’ He repeated it loudly, to be sure they all knew of his generosity. ‘Keep the rest here, in safety. Sorcor and I will return, before the year is out, to take a tally, and to teach you how such things are best sold.’ With a wry and confiding smile, he lifted the wooden bowl of wine. ‘I offer you a sour toast! To sweeter and better things to come!’
As one, they roared out their adulation. Tayella did not seem to realize he had just stolen her village’s control from her. Her eyes shone as brightly as the rest, she lifted her bowl as high. Even dour Sorcor joined in when they shouted his name. Triumph sharper than any he had known cut deep and sweet into his soul. His gaze met the worshipful eyes of his first mate and he knew he once more had his leash securely. He smiled at the man and even at the baby he was doting on. A laugh almost burst from Kennit’s chest as this final piece tumbled into place. Sorcor believed Kennit had honoured him. That Kennit had hung his name on the baby as a sort of reward to him. He did not fight the widening of his own grin. Instead, he lifted his bowl high once more. With a pounding heart, he waited for the noise to subside around him. When it did, he spoke in a deceptively soft voice. ‘Do as I teach you,’ he bade them gently. ‘Follow my ways, and I shall
