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Tharrick was swept by a sharp, sudden urge to protect her.
She seemed so slender and torn, alone in this house with no trusted mate to
share the rearing of her twins, nor this moment's pained indecision.
Arithon, perhaps, was perceptive enough to take advantage. Moved to a queer
stab of jealousy, Tharrick said, "The sorcery that burned
Alestron's armory killed seven men. I was there."
The light brushed without sparkle over plain wooden hairpins as
Jinesse quickly shook her head. "I don't say he's blameless, of that or any
other accusation laid against him.
He's never made excuses or tried to deny his past actions. His silence is so
strict on the subject, if I dared, I would challenge him in frustration."
"What do you think?" pressed Tharrick.
The widow bent, wrung out another dressing, and scooped up a dollop of herb
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paste. "I think this village need not become involved.
The Shadow Master took pains to set no roots here. Quite the contrary.
He wishes himself at sea to the point where he's desperate. If he were some
dread sorcerer or a minion of evil, I'm doubting he'd need to drive himself to
the edge for the sake of a half-built brace of ships."
The shadow of a gull flicked past the window. Chilled by its passage,
Tharrick said, "What if he wishes such ships to disrupt the trade of honest
men?"
"Piracy?" Jinesse looked up, her cupped hands filled with remedies, to stare
at Tharrick in shock. "Is that what you believe?
If it's true, there's no thread of evidence. These brigantines weren't
planned for armament. I held the impression they were Arithon's hope to
outrun the bloodshed loosed upon him by the armies from the north."
The bandaging resumed in stiff silence. Arithon slept on, pliant as a
scarecrow, his head tipped aslant and his blistered palms slack against the
soiled thighs of his breeches. Jinesse proceeded on her own to mix the tisane
from valerian and poppy to dull her invalid's pain and let him sleep. Warmed
and eased by her ministrations, Tharrick watched through halfclosed eyelids as
she hooked the basket of soiled linens on one arm and collected the herb jar
and pot from the side table.
As comfort returned and he slipped into drugged reverie, he noticed she took
extreme care not to disturb the other sleeper as she passed.
Before he dozed off, Tharrick pondered this reserve, in his quiet way
relieved. If she were corrupted by the Shadow Master, or sheltered him in
collusion, she acted without ties to the heart.
In time, the wounded guardsman drifted into dreams.
When he roused, much later, and Jinesse brought him bread and gruel, the chair
was vacant and Arithon long gone.
The days passed, the schedule of the widow's attentions interspersed between
drug-soaked sleep and hours spun into muddled awareness.
Impressions not hazed by possets and fever stood out like cut crystal:
of the twins' boisterous contention over which last fetched water from the
well; of a killdeer crying in the deeps of the night; of storm
rains pattering the beachhead, and once, Arithon's voice in a whip-crack
inflection berating the Mad Prophet for shoddy penmanship on the charts.
"I don't care blazes if an lyat has warped all your quill pens!
If you're too fat and slack to chalk out a simple baneward, then buy a tin
talisman for the purpose! Either way, your copies had better be up to my
standards."
"To Sithaer with all that!" Dakar plunged on in scathing hatred, "Alestron's
joined forces with Lysaer to kill you. I saw the duke swear alliance in a
dream......
Another night, held restless and awake by the throb of the leg wound that had
festered, Tharrick overheard the end of another discussion, Arithon's diction
muted by concern. "Well yes, the coffers are low.
The outlay to the forges at Perdith was never planned. I've got enough silver
left to keep the workers on, period. No more funds for wood.
None for new canvas. If the hull that's least damaged gets launched at all,
she'll have to leave Merior under tow. The point's likely moot.
Ath knows there's no coin to charter a vessel to drag her."
A chair scraped on brick as Jinesse arose to set water on the bob for tea.
Some other stranger with a sailor's broad drawl murmured commiseration, then
finished off in dry warning. "The rumor's true enough. Alestron's troops of
mercenaries are mustering. War galleys refitted to put to sea.
You'd better pray Ath sends in storms black enough to close the harbors,
because if the season holds fair, the sands of Scimlade Tip could soon grow
too hot to hold you."
Then Dakar cut in, carping, "If you had a firkin of sense, man, you'd give up
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the yard. Take what silver you have left and sail out on the tide in your
sloop."
Arithon replied in a timbre to raise sudden chills. "I have no intention of
letting my efforts get scuttled in Merior's harbor.
That means you're not only going to stay sober, you'll stir off your backside
and help. I want a lane scrying daily at noon, and each time you fail me, by
my oath to Asandir, I'll see you starve without dinner."
The back-and-forth volley of argument extended long into the night.
When
Jinesse entered late, her pale face lit by the flutter of a hand-
carried candle, Tharrick struggled up from his pillow. "Why doesn't the
Shadow
Master take better care?
I can eavesdrop on all of his plans."
"If you ask him yourself, he would tell you straight out that he hasn't got
anything to hide." Jinesse set her light on the nightstand, bent over, and
laid a tentative palm on his brow.
"Your fever's abated. How goes the pain? The posset should be stopped, if
you can bear it. Poppy's unsafe, over time.
Arithon won't have you grow addicted."
"Why ever should he care?" Tharrick cried, and flopped back, his large hands
bunched in the sheets the way a castaway might cling to a reef.
"What am I to him but an enemy?"
His dread had recurred more than once in his nightmares, sorcerer might cosset
an assassin back to health for that a some lingering, spell-turned revenge.
Jinesse tugged the linen free of Tharrick's fists and smoothed the rutched
bedclothes across his chest. She looked tired. The dry lines of crow's-feet
around her eyes were made harsh in the upslanting glow of the candle as she
gave a tight shake of her head. "The prince means you no harm. He's said, if
you wanted, he would arrange for a cart to bear you to take sanctuary in the
hostel with Ath's adepts. The moment you're well enough to travel, you can
leave."
Tharrick dragged in a hissed breath and said in bleak pain through locked
teeth, "When I go, I shall walk, and not be asking that bastard for his royal
charity."
A timid, pretty smile bowed the widow's mouth. "Ask mine, then.
You're welcome here. By my word, his coin never paid for your soup,"
Tharrick sank back into sheets that smelled faintly of lavender, his cheeks
stained to color by embarrassment. "You know I have no prospects."
Against habit, the widow's smile broadened. "My dear man, forgive me.
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