board creaked to Tharrick’s shifted weight. Arithon started erect, noted whose presence blocked the doorway, then settled back in maddening complacence.
‘You dare much to trust me,’ said the exiled captain. ‘Should you not show alarm? It’s my own duke’s army inbound toward this village. A word from me and that hull could be impounded at Southshire.’
‘Will you speak, then?’ challenged Arithon. Coiled and still as the leopard his brigantine honoured, the calm he maintained as he waited for answer built to a frightening presence. In the widow’s cosy kitchen, the quiet felt isolate, a bubble blown out of glass. The sounds outside the window, of surf and crying gulls and the distant shouts of fishermen snatched by the wind from the decks of a lugger, assumed the unreality of a daydream.
Tharrick found himself unable to sustain the blank patience implied by those level, green eyes. ‘Why should you take such a risk?’
Arithon’s answer surprised him. ‘Because your master abandoned all faith in you. The least I can do as the cause of your exile is to leave you the chance to prove out your duke’s unfair judgment.’
‘You’d allow me to ruin you in truth,’ Tharrick said.
‘Once, that was everything you wanted.’ Motionless Arithon remained, while the widow at his shoulder held her breath.
The appeal in Jinesse’s regard made Tharrick speak out at last. ‘No.’ He had worked himself to blisters seeing that brigantine launched. Respect before trust tempered his final decision. ‘Dharkaron Avenger bear witness, you’ve treated me nothing but fairly. Betrayal of your interests will not be forthcoming from me.’
Arithon’s taut brows lifted. He smiled. The one word of thanks, the banal platitude he instinctively avoided served to sharpen the impact of his pleasure. His honest emotion struck and shattered the reserve of the guardsman who had set out to wrong him.
Tharrick straightened his shoulders, restored to dignity and manhood.
Then the widow’s shy nod of approval vaulted him on to rash impulse. ‘Don’t scuttle the other brigantine. I could stay on, see her launched. If Alestron’s galleys are delayed a few days, she could be jury-rigged out on a lugger’s gear.’
Arithon pushed to his feet in astonishment. ‘I would never on my life presume to ask so much!’ He embarked on a scrutiny that seemed to burn Tharrick through to the marrow, then finally shrugged, embarrassed and caught at a loss. ‘I need not give warning. You well know the odds you must face, and the risk.’
Tharrick agreed. ‘I could fail.’
Arithon was curt. ‘You could find yourself horribly compromised.’ Small need to imagine how Duke Bransian might punish what would be seen as a second betrayal.
‘Let me try,’ the former guardsman begged. He suddenly felt the recovery of his honour hung on the strength of the sacrifice. ‘I give you my oath, I’ll do all I can to save what my pride set in jeopardy.’
‘You’ll not swear to me,’ Arithon said, his rebuff fallen shy of the vehemence his cornered straits warranted. ‘I’ll be far offshore and beyond Lysaer’s reach. No. If you swear, you’ll bind your promise to the widow Jinesse. She’s the only friend I have in this village who’s chosen to stay with the risk of knowing my identity.’
‘Demon!’ Amazed to near anger by the trap that would hold him to the absolute letter of loyalty, Tharrick asked, ‘Have you always weighed hearts like the Fatemaster?’ For of all spirits living, he would not see the widow let down.
The white flash of a grin, as Arithon caught his hand in a firm clasp of amity. ‘I judge no one. Your duke in Alestron was a man blind to merit. If the labourers in the yard will support your mad plan, I’d bless my good luck and be grateful.’
Sealed to undertake the adventure on a handshake, Tharrick stepped back. The Master of Shadow gave a nod in salute to Jinesse, who hung back in mute anguish by the hob. With no more farewell than that, he turned in neat grace toward the doorway.
Dakar heaved to his feet and followed after, plaintive and resigned as a cur snapped on a short leash. ‘We could at least stay for supper,’ he lamented. ‘Jinesse spreads a much better table than you do.’
His entreaty raised no reply.
The last Merior saw of Rathain’s prince was his spare silhouette as he launched Talliarthe’s tiny dory against the silver-laced breakers on the strand. His bright, pealing laugh carried back through the rush of the tide’s ebb.
‘Very well, Dakar. I’ve laid in spirits to ease your sick stomach on the voyage. But you’ll broach the cask after we’ve rowed to the mooring. Once aboard the sloop, you can drink yourself senseless. But damned if I’ll strain myself hauling your deadweight over the rail on a halyard.’
Fugitives
The twins stowed away. No one discovered their absence until dawn, when the luggers sailed out to fish. By then, the bayside mooring that had secured the Khetienn bobbed empty. The line of the horizon cut the sea’s edge in an unbroken band, Arithon’s sloop Talliarthe long gone.
The widow’s tearful questions raised no answers. No one had seen the children slip into the water by moonlight the previous night. No small, dripping forms had been noticed, climbing the wet length of a mooring chain, and no dory was missed from the beach.
‘They could be anywhere,’ Jinesse cried, her thin shoulders cradled in Tharrick’s burly arms and her face pressed against his broad chest. Memories of Innish’s quayside impelled her to jagged edged grief. ‘Ten years of age is far too young to be out and about in the world.’
Tharrick stroked the blonde hair she had been too distraught to bind up. ‘They’re not alone,’ he assured her. ‘If they hid in the sloop, they’ll come to no harm. Arithon cares for them like an older brother.’
‘What if they stowed aboard the Khetienn?’ Jinesse’s voice split. ‘Ath preserve them, Southshire’s a sailor’s port! Even so young, Fiark could be snatched and sold to a trade galley! And Feylind -’ She ran out of nerve to voice her anxieties over brothels.
‘No.’ Tharrick grasped her tighter and gave her a gentle shake. ‘Arithon’s two most trusted hands sailed with that brigantine. Think soundly! His discipline’s forthright. His men fear his temper like Dharkaron himself, or believe this, I’d have found my throat slit on the first dark night since he freed me.’
Every labourer in the yard knew their master’s fondness for the twins. The measure of his censure when rules were transgressed, or a mob grew unruly with drink, was an experience never to be forgotten. Arithon’s response to Tharrick’s rough handling had been roundly unpleasant, had left joiners twice his size and strength cowed and cringing. It would be worth a man’s life to misuse the widow’s children, or allow any harm to befall them.
While Jinesse’s composure crumpled into sobs, Tharrick bundled her close and swept her out of the fog and back to the snug comfort of her cottage.
‘It’s eighty leagues overland to Southshire!’ he cried as she lunged to snatch her shawl and chase the fish wagon. ‘You won’t make it off the Scimlade peninsula before that army’s sealed the roads.’
