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i_read_what2021-11-17 12:17 am
kalinara) wrote in i_read_what2021-11-17 12:17 am
Warhost of Vastmark - Chapter Two - Ships of Merior
So last time, each of our characters did what they do best. The Fellowship was useless and ominous, Lysaer was diplomatic and evil, the s'Brydions bickered, Dakar complained, and Arithon was full of Angst and Compassion.
You know, basically any Tuesday.
That said, Arithon's ships are on fire, which puts a significant damper on his own plans to escape, while Lysaer knows exactly where he is and intends to lead an army to him. Oops.
So this chapter starts us with Tharrick. He was the former guard captain turned exile that we met last chapter. And unfortunately, he and Arithon share something else in common, aside from getting screwed over by the Fellowship and people in authority: they both have massive guilt complexes.
The balm of his victory instead left him hollow and distressed. The undaunted resumption of activity on the sandspit abraded the satisfaction from his achievement until he felt shamed to puzzled anguish. His single-handed attack had fairly ruined a man's hopes, and yet, no one close to Arithon stepped forth to berate him for the damage. The widow named his friend did not stint her hospitality. She did not speak out in censure. If her twin children were more aggressive in their loyalties, the morning she caught them paired at his bedside, accusing voices raised in a shocking turn of language, she scolded their mannerless tongues and packed them off on an errand to the fish market.
You and Arithon should go drinking together or something. You'd get along really well!
Poor Tharrick can't really do much, seeing as how he's recovering from injury and illness. And no little trauma, as sometimes, when feverish, he still hears the slash of the braided whip that the s'Brydions punished him with.
Arithon comes to visit, carrying herbs for simples. He chats with Jinesse, asking to borrow her trestle table so Dakar can copy some maps. He's having the twins watch him to keep him sober. They are so married.
Arithon does tell Jinesse that if Dakar moans too much or gets too crude, he'll send two of his men to sit on him so Jinesse can sew his mouth shut. Probably because Arithon is about the size of a wet cat and can't do it himself. Anyway, Jinesse figures she'd hardly notice bad language considering...well...the twins.
Arithon's also here to check on Tharrick. Tharrick's eye view of things is pretty interesting:
The pair entered the sickroom, the widow with her face flushed pink above her blouse and her unburdened hands given to fidgeting with her skirts. Through his days of convalescence, Tharrick had taken quiet pleasure in her presence. She had a certain shy grace in those moments when she believed no one watched. But Arithon set her on edge. His quick, light movement and contained self-command hurled her off course like a moth thrown into strong light.
We get some new description of Arithon, plus a look at the expertise acquired from Elaira:
Jinesse was not alone in feeling unnerved before the intensity of Arithon's regard. With the window at his back, his face looked drawn to hollows, the eyes like sharp points sunk in pits. His tone held the edge of burr, struck from impatience or exhaustion as he said, 'Stay with the red clover for the burns. That gash on the thigh still looks inflamed. Along with elecampane and cone-flower, let's add wild thyme, and of course, keep on with the betony.'
He does almost collapse from exhaustion, leading Jinesse to almost-yell at him. Which, given what we know of Jinesse, is pretty startling. That's just how aggravating Arithon is, of course, to get the shrinking violet to raise her voice at him. Fucking martyr. Jinesse gets him to sit down for a bit, and we get more purple prose, sad exhaustion style.
To everyone's astqnishment, most of all his own, the Prince of Rathain did her bidding. Up close, he looked drawn beneath his tan. His hair was caught in pitchy tangles at the temples where he had raked it back with knuckles still smeared from green planks. The thumbnail on his left hand was swollen black, perhaps from a mis-struck mallet. Unable to bear his appearance straight on, the widow threw open the curtains to flush out the cloying reek of herbs.
Breezes off the ocean fingered the loosened laces of Arithon's shirt. The impersonal touch relaxed him, or else the flood of fresh air. He tipped his crown to rest against the chair back and almost instantly fell asleep.
Aw.
And Tharrick is not immune to this, of course:
Tharrick surrendered his chafed wrist to the widow for dressing, and pondered the incongruity, how unlikely it seemed, that a sorcerer of such black reputation could behave in mild, trusting innocence.
To his dismay, he found he had mused his thought aloud.
Jinesse slapped a heated strip of linen over the applied layer of poultice paste brusquely enough to raise a sting. 'Arithon's driving himself half to death in that shipyard!' At Tharrick's subdued flinch, she gentled her touch with the wrapping. 'They say he's not slept in two days beyond catnaps, and Ath show him mercy, just look at his hands! He's Athera's own Masterbard, and criminal indeed, to dare risk his gift to common labour!'
Poor Tharrick continues to feel miserable. Seriously, dude. You two really need to hang out. You can cry on each other's shoulders and confess how everything is your faults. It'd be fun.
Jinesse apologizes for her outburst, saying that Arithon insisted that Tharrick wasn't at fault (of course he did), but the setback is pretty harsh.
They discuss Arithon's alleged misdeeds. Jinesse admits that she doesn't know if he's guilty of the things he's charged with, but that he'd charged her to measure him by his behavior, and so far he's done well with that. He's got the respect of the villagers. He's never cheated anyone or lied. And the only magic he's worked is with music.
Tharrick seems to have a bit of Nightingale syndrome, or whatever it's called when a patient falls in love with his nurse:
Flat on his back with cracked ribs, and never in his life more helpless, 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 armoury killed seven men. I was there.'
Jinesse doesn't contradict him. Arithon's been very closed-mouthed about all of it, without trying to make excuses or denials. (He probably could consider explaining things SOMETIMES actually.) Tharrick asks her what she thinks, and her take is more pragmatic: She doesn't think the village needs to get involved. Arithon never set roots here. He'd always intended to flee to sea.
Tharrick asks if Arithon means to take up piracy. Jinesse is shocked by this, saying that there's no evidence. There were no plans to arm the brigantines, and she believed he intended to outrun Lysaer instead.
They finish the bandaging in silence. Arithon's asleep "pliant as a scarecrow" and Tharrick's thoughtful.
-
So Tharrick continues to recover. We get snippets of what's going outside, like a marital spat between Arithon and Dakar:
'I don't care blazes if an iyat has warped all your quill pens! If you're too fat and slack to chalk out a simple bane-ward, 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 . . .'
Later, he hears Arithon discussing finances: not great. And the forces from Alestron are coming. Dakar urges him to give up the ship yard, take the silver he has left and flee in his sloop. Arithon has no intention of doing so, and conscripts Dakar into helping with scrying efforts.
Tharrick asks Jinesse why Arithon is so careless as to let him eavesdrop on his plans. Jinesse answers straightforward enough: Arithon doesn't feel like he has anything to hide.
Happily Tharrick's health is improving enough to stop the painkilling "posset" - Arithon doesn't want Tharrick to end up addicted to the poppy. Tharrick has the same frustrated confusion that we all get around Arithon from time to time, asking why the hell Arithon cares about him.
Jinesse doesn't really have an answer except to tell him of Arithon's offer to have him taken, by cart, to sanctuary at the hostel with the adepts of Ath. He can leave as soon as he's well enough to travel.
Tharrick proves, once again, that he and Arithon really should be lifelong friends:
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.'
And MAYBE his Florence Nightingale syndrome isn't all one way:
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 colour by embarrassment. 'You know I have no prospects.'
Against habit, the widow's smile broadened. 'My dear man, forgive me. But you're going to have to be back up and walking before that becomes anybody's worry.'
Dude, you ain't banging anyone until your dick works again. (But...I'm not sure she minds the rest.)
--
I like this next bit:
Denied cause for outrage, reft of every justification for his enmity against the Shadow Master, Tharrick exerted his last, stubborn pride to arise from his bed and recover. From his faltering first steps across the widow's cottage, his progress seemed inextricably paired with the patching of the damaged brigantine his act of revenge had holed through.
Seriously. Be friends. You both have massive guilt complexes and are motivated by spite. It'd be great.
So Tharrick starts exploring the town. He's stiff and silent, because he knows what's coming. He knows exactly what kind of destruction Duke Bransian can unleash. And well, he's not exactly welcome thanks to the whole burning the shipyard thing.
Unfortunately, Tharrick knows the s'Brydions' capabilities. He knows the the geography. So he knows exactly how little time they have left.
Eventually, Tharrick makes his way to the shipyard: where, fascinatingly, he's greeted with indifference rather than animosity:
Even the master joiner, who had ordered his beatings and tried unspeakable means to force his silence, showed no rancour at his presence. Arithon's will had made itself felt. Enemy though he was, none dared to raise word or hand against him. All were ruled by their master's ruthless tongue and his fever-pitched driving purpose. The salvage effort on the damaged brigantine already showed a near-complete patch at her bow; the one still in frames on her bedlogs lay changed, half-cannibalized for her wood, then lessened in length and faired ready for planking. A less-ambitious vessel with a shorter sheerline took shape, fitted here and there between the yellow of new spruce with the odd checked timber fished together from the derelict lugger.
And Tharrick is moved by the progress they're making. Because he and Arithon are bosom buddies, at heart:
Struck by a stabbing, unhappy urge to weep, Tharrick held his chin in stiff pride. He would not bend before awe, would not spin and run to the widow's cottage to hide his face in shame. The man who had forgiven his malice in mercy would be shown the qualities which had earned his past captaincy in Alestron. In hesitant steps on the fringes, Tharrick began to lend his help. If his mending ribs would not let him wheel a handcart, or his palms were too tender to wield a pod auger to drill holes for treenails in hardened oak, he could steady a plank for the plane on the trestles, or run errands, or turn dowels to pin timbers and ribs. He could stoke the fire in the boiler shed, and maybe, for his conscience, regain a small measure of the self-respect he had lost to disgrace and harsh exile.
And because Arithon is just as much of a prickly asshole, three days in, Tharrick finds silver left on the table in his name. Tharrick gets pissed off by this, but Jinesse explains:
Drawn by the bang as he hurled open the casement, Jinesse caught his wrist and stopped his attempt to fling the coins into the fallow tangle of her garden. 'Tharrick, no. What are you thinking? Arithon doesn't run a slave yard. Neither does he give grown men charity. He said if you can't be bothered to collect your pay with the others, this was the last time he'd cover for your mistakes.'
Congratulations, Tharrick, you're an employee now. Have you considered unionizing?
Tharrick admits that Arithon's "a demon for forcing a man to think". Jinesse agrees: not just men, and tells him about her trip to Innish. And if nothing else, Tharrick proves he has a lot more game than Arithon does. He's holding her hands by the end of the story. And they sit together like that until the twins inevitably show up to interrupt.
--
We drift ahead, time wise, to a storm. It's likely slowing down Lysaer's army, which is good, but there are some risks to the shipyard. When Tharrick shows up for work, he finds that "all three shifts" were sent to make repairs in the village instead of working on the ship. Because of course.
Arithon's still working though. And Tharrick and he actually get a chance to talk.
Quiet to one side, his hair newly trimmed and yesterday's stubble shaven clean, Tharrick ventured the first comment he had dared since making his own way at the shipyard. 'It's likely your generosity has doomed the last hull.'
Arithon crammed another billet into the stove, then yanked back his hand as the sparks flew. 'If so, that was my choice to make.'
'I'm not a green fool.' Tharrick envied the neat, practised speed that hurled each split piece of kindling over the heat-rippled bed of hot ash. 'I've led men. Your example makes them work until their hearts burst to meet an impossible standard.'
A slick, cold laugh wrung from the Shadow Master's throat as he clashed the fire door closed. 'You're mistaken.' He straightened, reduced to lean contours sketched out in a silverpoint gleam of wet skin. His eyes were derisive and heavy with fatigue as he regarded the former guardsman who offered his tentative respect. 'I happen to have employed every wood-sawyer and carpenter inside of thirty leagues. Had I not sent the joiners, we'd have gotten every fishwife and her man's favourite marlinespike fouling the works here by noon. In case you hadn't noticed, the framing's all done. It's the caulkers I can't spare, and I needed some excuse to keep the fasteners overtime with the planking.'
Unapologetic, ill-tempered, Arithon sidestepped and slipped past. Abandoned to an eddied whirl of air, Tharrick swallowed back humiliation. The widow's observation was borne out with sharp vengeance, that if the Shadow Master's generosity could be held beyond reproach, it was not to be mistaken for his friendship.
Nah, Tharrick. Arithon likes you. He's just a dick. You'll get used to that. You could have asked Lysaer before, well. Never mind.
Anyway, you'll learn soon enough how Arithon loves everybody very much and it pisses him off to no end.
Eventually folks return, and the master joiner pulls Arithon aside to express some concern. Arithon is not particularly receptive. But his real concern is Tharrick:
'No.' The master joiner braced rangy shoulders against the urgency of those green eyes upon him. 'You're losing your sense of propriety. This morning Tharrick admired your judgment and you threw back his words in his face.'
Arithon's lips thinned into instant contempt. 'In case you'd failed to notice, Tharrick's all too quick to carve life up into absolutes. I can do very well without his worshipful admiration. Not when the reckoning is likely as not to get him killed by the hand of his own duke!'
Told you, Tharrick. You're friends already.
Anyway, the master joiner is no match for Arithon's general assholishness, so he goes back to work.
We hear some gossip the next day. Erlien's clanfolk have apparently done their work well. A bridge collapsed beneath one of the mercenary troops. No one died, but the delay definitely caused an uproar.
Ms. Wurts gives us some retroactive fan service while telling us that Arithon is clad in a shirt for the first time in weeks ("the light in his hair like spilled ink.) And the sole surviving brigantine is launched.
And Tharrick and Arithon share a moment:
While sailhands recruited from the south shore taverns waded after, to catch lines and launch longboats to warp the floated hull to a mooring, Tharrick was among the first to approach and offer his congratulations. Arithon returned a quick, brilliant smile that faded as the former guardsman's gaze shifted to encompass the smaller hull still poised forlorn on her ways.
Understanding flashed wordless between them. Of ten ships planned at the outset, one brigantine in the water might be all that Arithon's best effort could garner. As fishermen said, his luck neared the shoals; the hour was too late to save the second.
Aw. There's still reason to celebrate though. The new ship is named the "Khetienn", which is the old tongue word for the black and gold leopard that makes up the s'Ffalenn royal arms. Arithon and Dakar end up leaving the party early (Dakar is not happy about it). Tharrick slips away too.
So Arithon and Jinesse discuss his plans. He's sailing away in the Talliarthe (his sloop), while a trader captain is going to take the Khetienn in tow. She'll be completed in Southshire on credit.
Tharrick makes his presence known and Arithon is unconcerned. This leads to another Moment:
'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.
Aw.
Tharrick now feels "restored to dignity and manhood", a turn of phrase that even I find a little much. But it inspires him to volunteer something. He tells Arithon not to scuttle the incomplete brigantine. I don't quite follow what he wants to do, but I THINK he's planning some kind of decoy with it.
Anyway, Arithon is astonished. And they share MORE of a Moment:
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 Fate-master?' 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.'
Aw.
They ARE friends now. Too bad there's no time to go drinking. But maybe next time!
It's nice to see Arithon making friends in other ways besides kidnapping people! So Arithon and Dakar are off, and we get this lovely, little paragraph to fuel my shipper heart:
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.'
---
The subchapter is Fugitives:
We learn the next day that the twins managed to stow away aboard the Khetienn. Of course they did. Jinesse is devastated and terrified:
'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.
...Tharrick really does have game, doesn't he?
Anyway, he reassures her that Arithon's most trusted hands are aboard the Khetienn. And he's always kept his men very disciplined (Tharrick's own well being can attest to that.):
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.
It is, of course, a not very subtle contrast to the brutal and awful actions of a lot of the people in Lysaer's army. Particularly against the clansfolk. Lysaer has no interest in reining his own people in when their hatred and passions serve his purpose.
It's a rather funny lesson. Lysaer is probably far more loved by his men than Arithon is his. He rules solely through respect, while Arithon mixes some level of fear in his. But it's clear who the better leader is of the two.
Anyway, Tharrick has to talk Jinesse out of a rash attempt to follow the kids. He promises that when the second brigantine is launched, he'll go himself to Southshire and track the kids down. Aw.
Unfortunately, poor Jinesse can't really confide in anyone else. They all respect Arithon, as she does, but they don't know who he really is or the inherent danger. But at least Tharrick understands. And well, things continue to progress nicely. Ahem.
So the second ship, now dubbed the Shearfast (and you can definitely see the difference in naming conventions) is ready. A "nimble little sailhand" was hired to captain it, and Tharrick goes off. Poor Jinesse is left weeping and alone again.
So they're off. And the warships are not very far away. Tharrick knows exactly what will happen to him if he's caught: and it'll be much worse than a flogging.
They end up taking the ship through the reefs. It's their one advantage: they know how to sail them, while the galleys don't. The galleys are catching up, but start to have trouble: one goes completely belly up on a reef. Another has to stop to tend the first. Another gets beached.
Unfortunately, thee are fifteen galleys after them. Three down is good but not great. But there's a storm coming.
And there's a bolt of light in the sky. Crap. It's Lysaer. The Shearfast is about to go kaboom. They get ready to fight or die, but Tharrick has an idea. He can delay the pursuers by staying behind while the others flee to shore and claim sanctuary in the hostel of Ath's brotherhood.
So what does Tharrick have in mind?
So simple, Tharrick thought; the hoodwink he proposed should be obvious. He steeled his resolve and explained. 'I was the duke's man. I wrecked your master's shipyard. Who could believe I would be here alive, except as Arithon's bound prisoner?'
The others like the idea, but they're endearingly concerned for Tharrick, who's going to be left tied up in a burning ship. Tharrick doesn't like that much either, but if they find him before he burns, he should be able to mislead them long enough to buy the others time.
Though he won't be staying alone. The captain's staying behind too. But with far grimmer intent:
'All right, listen up!' cracked the captain. 'I stay, and one other. We'll draw straws to see who bids for shore leave.'
Tharrick voiced an immediate protest, cut silent as the captain yanked the sash off his waist to twist into use as a gag. 'There has to be a sacrifice,' he said as he tied off the cloth in desperation. 'If we leave an empty ship, your place will be questioned. Then they're sure to mount a search for survivors.'
Damn. This captain joins the list of awesome, forever unnamed random side characters in this series.
Though Tharrick's not having a fun time either:
Shearfast's crewman raced light-footed from the hold. Behind, for cold necessity, they left the whispered lick of flame and a poisonous, pitch-fed haze of smoke. Tharrick coughed. His throat closed and his eyes ran. The thick fumes sickened him to dizziness. He felt as though he were falling headlong through the very gates of Sithaer. Driven senseless by the metallic taste of fear, dazed beyond reason by poisoned air, he did not remember giving way to terrified screams, muffled to whimpers by the gag. Nor did he keep any shred of raw courage as he wrenched like a beast at the rope ties.
Awareness became wrapped in an inferno. Skin knew again the blistering kiss of agony as the red snap of fire chewed through the planks overhead. The thumps of a distant scuffle made no sense, nor the mazed clang of steel, followed by the defiant last shout of the gamecock captain. 'Kill the prisoner!'
The cry that bought Tharrick his chance for salvation rang through the steel clash of weapons. A fallen body thudded, kicking in nerve-fired death throes. Then a dying man choked out a rattling gasp and slammed through the companionway door, the blade through his chest a glistening reflection doused in fresh running blood.
Damn, that captain is hardcore. (And reminds me a little of the very first chapter. When the Amroth sailors find an unconscious Arithon with another crewman, who attacks them rather than be rescued/captured.)
Anyway, Tharrick is found and rescued, just in time.
--
The last subchapter is Landfall.
So now we're back at Merior, where someone is making a grand entrance:
Lysaer s'Ilessid set foot on the damp sands of Merior, still dissatisfied over the report sent back from the galley which had run down the fugitive vessel. Of an unknown number of enemy crewmen, two had been slain in the melee of boarding. The sole survivor brought back for questioning was himself a prisoner of the Shadow Master, notched in scars from recent cruel handling, and unconscious from fresh burns and smoke poisoning.
Duke Bransian's crack captains had been too busy sparing the one life to mount a search of the waters for longboats.
Lysaer is frustrated by this. The Alestron mercenaries had boarded the ship, rather than Lysaer's own men, and they hadn't been trained to deal with pirate tactics.
There's some lovely imagery here:
A salt-laden gust parted Lysaer's fair hair as he trained his stormy regard up the beachhead. The rain had stopped. Mid-afternoon light shafted through broken clouds. The puddles wore a leaden sheen, and a shimmer of dipped silver played over the drenched crowns of the palm groves. Nestled in gloom as though uninhabited, the whitewashed cottages of Merior greeted his landing with wooden plank doors and pegged shutters shut fast.
The harbour stretched grey and empty as the land, choppy waters peppered with vacant moorings. The local fishing fleet would return with the dusk, as on any ordinary day. Up the strand, a sullen, black streamer of smoke spiralled on the wind from the site of Arithon's shipyard. No fugitives had sought to cross the cordon of mercenaries that blocked Scimlade Tip from the mainland; the single lugger found setting fish traps in the bay had offered no hostilities when flagged down for questioning.
And of course, Arithon had been very careful. So any inquiries about "the Master of Shadow" had just drawn blank confusion from anyone questioned. So Arithon's scampered off, no clues behind.
Lysaer does at least get a dramatic line:
'You think he'll be back?' Prepared to disagree, Diegan pushed up his helm to scrape his damp hair off his brow.
'No.' Lysaer spun in a flapping storm of oilcloth and stalked to the edge of the tidemark. 'The fugitive ship which burned before our eyes was the easiest chance we had to track him. Now that option's lost, he'll have the whole ocean in which to take cover. We're balked, but not crippled. The stamp of his design can never be mistaken for merchant shipping. Wherever the Shadow Master plans to make landfall, I'll find the means to be waiting.'
Well, if Lysaer can do nothing else, he can, at least, win over the whole damn village:
At twilight, when the fishing luggers sailed homeward to find their cove patrolled by war galleys and their shores cluttered with encampments of mercenaries, knots of shouting men and a congregation of goodwives converged upon the beaten earth of the fish market. A groomed contingent of Avenor's senior officers turned out and met them to assure their prince would answer their complaints. By the fluttered, ruddy light of pitch torches, on a dais constructed of fish barrels and planks, the Prince of the West awaited in a surcoat edged in braided bullion. In token of royal rank he wore only a gold circlet. Against all advice, he was not armed. His bodyguard remained with the longboats, and only Alestron's fleet admiral and two officers attended at his right hand.
And the first thing he does is declare a celebration (with a cask provided from his own stores):
Again Lysaer waited for the shouts to die down. 'Your village has just been spared from the designs of great evil, and the grasp of a man of such resource and cunning, none here could know the extent of his ill intentions. I speak of the one you call Arithon, known in the north as Teir's'Ffalenn and the Master of Shadow.'
And Lysaer starts his speech:
This time when hubbub arose, Lysaer cut clearly through the clamour. 'During his years among you, he has exploited your trust, lured blameless craftsmen into dishonest service, and spent stolen funds to outfit a fleet designed and intended for piracy. I'm here tonight to expose his bloody history, and to dispel without question every doubt to be raised against the criminal intent he sought to hide.'
The quiet at this grew profound. Muscular men in patched oilskins and their goodwives in their aprons spangled with cod scales packed into a solid and threatening body. Before the ranks of inimical faces, Lysaer resumed unperturbed. In clear, magisterial elegance, he presented his case, beginning with the wrongs done his family on his homeworld of Dascen Elur. There, the s'Ffalenn bent for sea raids had been documented by royal magistrates for seven generations. The toll of damaged lives was impressive. Stirred to forceful resolve, the fair-haired prince related his eyewitness account of the slaughter at Deshir Forest. Other transgressions at Jaelot and Alestron were confirmed by Duke Bransian's officer. He ended with the broad-scale act of destruction which had torched the trade fleet at Minderl Bay.
The villagers remained unconvinced.
A few in the front ranks crossed their arms in disgust, unimpressed with foreign news that held little bearing upon the daily concerns of their fishing fleet.
'Is it possible you think the man who sheltered here was not one and the same person?' Lysaer asked. 'Let me say why that fails to surprise me.' He went on to describe the Shadow Master's appearance and habits in a damning array of detail. He spoke of innocents diabolically corrupted, small children taught to cut the throats of the wounded lying helpless in their blood on the field. His description was dire and graphic enough to wring any parent to distress.
Before Lysaer's forthright and painful self-honesty, Arithon, in retrospect, seemed shady as a night thief. Natural reticence felt like dishonest concealment, and leashed emotion, the mark of a cold, scheming mind.
Lysaer continues, of course, with another great line:
'This is a man whose kindness is drawn in sharp calculation, whose every word and act masks a hidden motive. Pity does not move him. His code is base deceit. The people he befriends are as game pieces, and if violent death suits the stripe of his design, not even babes are exempt.'
This gets a response. The boardinghouse lady defends Arithon, saying he had as much compassion for children as "any man gifted with fatherhood", and she singles out Jinesse as being able to say as much.
Poor Jinesse. And Lysaer definitely lays on the purple prose here:
Golden, majestic, the Prince of the West did not address her on the level of the crowd. He caught her bird-boned hand in a sure, warm grip, and as if she were wellborn and precious, drew her up the plank step to the dais. He gave her no chance for embarrassed recrimination. His gaze, blue as unflawed sky, stayed direct and fixed on her face. 'I'm grieved indeed to see a man with no scruples delude an upright goodwife such as you.'
Jinesse heaved a tight breath, her fingers grown damp and starting to tremble. She searched the heart-stopping, beautiful male features beneath the circlet and cap of pale hair. She found no reassurance, no trace of the charlatan in the square, honest line of his jaw and the sculptured slope of his cheekbones. His unclouded eyes reflected back calm concern and unimpeachable sincerity.
'Forgive me,' said the prince in a gentleness very different than the mettlesome, biting irony of the Shadow Master. 'I see I've struck hurtfully close to the mark. I never intended to grieve you.'
Jinesse pushed away the uneasy recollection of green eyes, heavy with shadows too impenetrably deep to yield their mystery. 'Master Arithon showed only kindness to my twins. I cannot believe he'd cause them harm.'
Unfortunately, Lysaer digs into a sore spot when he asks where the children are now. He accuses Arithon of luring the children away, and calls them clay in his hands.
'It may not be too late,' the prince reassured, his voice pitched as well for the villagers gathered beneath the dais. The people, all unwitting, had crowded closer to hang on each word as he spoke. 'I have an army and Alestron's fleet of war galleys. We are highly mobile, well supplied, and most able to mount swift pursuit. I only need know where the Master of Shadow has gone. Prompt action could restore your lost twins to your side.'
Jinesse recovered the courage to draw back. 'What you offer is a war! That could as easily drown them in Ath's oceans to share a grave in the deeps with their father.'
'Perhaps,' Lysaer said equably. 'Would you rather Dharkaron Avenger should meet and judge their spirits first? If the Wheel's turning took them in some machination of the Shadow Master's, they could find their damnation as well.'
'How dramatic,' Jinesse said in a stiff-backed distaste that deplored his choice of public venue. 'We've known Arithon as a fair-minded man for the better part of a year. On your word, in just one afternoon, we're to accept the greater mercy of your judgment?'
Yet her composure crumbled just enough for Lysaer to glean a ruler's insight: if the villagers of Merior had sheltered Arithon in ignorance, this one woman had been aware of his identity beforetime. An added depth of grief pinched her features as she challenged, 'What of the crew who manned the Shearfast? Where was your vaunted pity when your galleys ran them down and let them burn?'
'Your husband was aboard?' Lysaer probed softly.
Jinesse jerked her fingers from his clasp. Her wide-eyed flash of resentment transformed to dismay as she spun and flounced off of the dais.
It's interesting to see the contrasting way that Arithon and Lysaer's personal charisma works.
Lysaer is very effective when it comes to large groups of people. He knows how to play on their insecurities and their hatreds and biases. And his personal charisma one on one is dazzling.
But Arithon wins an individual person's heart. In spite of them. In spite of himself.
Anyway, Lysaer orders his men to see that Jinesse gets home safely, then returns to playing the crowd. He offers his own men to answer any questions about Minderl Bay. Diegan will talk about Tal Quorin/Strakewood. And there are others from Jaelot and Alestron. And then, of course:
Lysaer raised his arms. His full, embroidered sleeves fell away from his wrists as he stretched his hands wide and summoned the powers of his birth gift. A flood of golden light washed the fish market. It rinsed through the flames in the torches, and built, blinding, dazzling, until the eye could not separate the figure of the prince from the overwhelming, miraculous glare.
Lysaer's voice rolled over the dismayed gasps of the awestruck fisherfolk at his feet. 'My gift of light is a full match for the Master of Shadow! Be assured I shall not rest until this land is safe, and his evil designs are eradicated.'
--
And yep, we're told via Jinesse, who hears it from the boardinghouse lady. Lysaer's tactics are successful. Once the beer and wine start flowing, people started talking. They brought back the old gossip about the Black Drake, and Jinesse's own voyage on the Taliarthe. And of course...
" Most telling of all was Arithon's reticence. The fact he had no confidant, that he never shared the least clue to his intentions became the most damning fact against him. Paired with first-hand accounts of his atrocities in the north, such self-possessed privacy in hindsight became the quiet of a secret, scheming mind.
Arithon is never able to not shoot himself in the foot, is he?
But then again, given what happened to that poor captain from Minderl Bay, maybe this is safer.
There is better news:
By roundabout means, the landlady reached the news she had been appointed to deliver. 'When the galley's crew boarded and took Shearfast, they insist only two of Arithon's sailors met them. Those refused quarter and fought to the death, but not to save their command. They had already fired the new hull to scuttle her. Despite the flames, the duke's officers searched the hold. They found a bound man held captive below decks. He was cut loose while unconscious, and is now in the care of Prince Lysaer's personal healer.'
Jinesse looked up from the skirt she had been mending, her needle poised at an agonized angle between stitches she had jerked much too tight. The name of Tharrick hung unspoken as she said, 'But Arithon kept no one prisoner.'
The boardinghouse landlady sniffed and drizzled honey over one of the pastries. 'I said so. The Prince of the West showed no opinion on the matter, but looked me through as though I were a child in sad want of wisdom.'
As brilliant and effective as Lysaer is, we can see how his own weaknesses trip him up here. And maybe it's the curse, in part, helping him along. But when he hears someone defending Arithon, or even just disagreeing with a negative comment ABOUT Arithon, he assumes they're foolish and misled. And so he doesn't even think that this might be a trick.
Jinesse on the other hand thinks about how it "seemed entirely plausible" that the doomed crew might have turned on Tharrick for belated revenge. She asks the landlady what she'll say.
'Why, nothing.' The landlady flicked crumbs from her blouse and gave a shrug as dour as a fisherman's. 'Let these outsiders untangle their own misadventures. We're not traderfolk, to hang our daily lives upon rumours. The mackerel won't swim to the net any better should we buy and sell talk like informants. If Arithon's evil, that's his own affair. He tried no foul acts in our village.' But her forceful, brusque note as she ended spoke of doubts irrevocably seeded.
The landlady folded the linen she had used to pack the scones. 'With only two bodies found to be counted, Prince Lysaer wished you to hear there may have been other survivors.' As she arose and smoothed her skirts over her ample thighs, she added on afterthought, 'His Grace seems anxious to know the number of Shearfast's crew. They were Arithon's people, I told him.'
Miserable and mute, Jinesse watched the other woman sweep past the pantry to let herself out. Paused at the threshold on departure, her full-lipped, cattiest smile as much for Lysaer's young officer, listening at his post outside the doorway, the landlady concluded her last line. 'I said, why ever should we care?'
It's kind of interesting. Before, Tharrick was outcast, essentially, for his damage to Arithon's shipyards. Now, he's one of them. The landlady will protect him. Arithon himself, however, is in doubt.
But I love that closing line.
-
So the next morning, Lysaer visits. He's made inquiries and knows that her husband drowned a year past. And while he's assuming she was attached to one of the men at the Shearfast, he's "prepared to treat her grief with compassion."
And Jinesse's perception of him is very interesting:
The elegance and manners of old blood royalty should not have upset her poise, Jinesse thought. Arithon's disconcerting, satirical directness had never made her feel embarrassed for unrefined origins, nor had his bearing afflicted her with apologetic confusion over whether or not she should curtsy.
Resplendent in glossy silk, and a chain of gold and matched sapphires, Lysaer stepped across the waxed boards of her parlour and caught her chapped fingers away from her habitual urge to fidget. 'Come sit,' he insisted.
And then:
Memories of another prince in rough linen who had set her just as deftly on a woodpile dogged her thoughts as she sought once again to plumb royal character through a face. Where Arithon had shown her discomfiting reticence and a perception forthright enough to wound, Prince Lysaer seemed candid and direct as clear sunlight. His dress was rich without being ostentatious. The breathtaking effect of overpowering male beauty he countered in personal warmth that lent an effect no less awesome.
But here, HERE is interesting:
The study he flicked over the room's rude interior held detached interest, until the fired glitter of the fine, cut glass bowl on her dish shelves snagged his interest. His surprise was genuine as he crossed the room on a stride. The sculpted shape of his hand bore an uncanny resemblance to Arithon's as he lifted the Falgaire crystal from the shelf.
I think this is the first time, ever, someone actually picked up on a physical resemblance between Lysaer and Arithon. They're both so visually associated with their respective paternal lines, that, except maybe for Lysaer's hair color and Arithon's size, Talera had never left a mark at all.
But apparently, there is something shared: in the shape of their hands. And Jinesse is the only person to have ever seen it.
Of course, the bowl itself came from the raid of Lysaer's caravan. And of course, Lysaer spins the story:
When Jinesse did not favour him with more than her stony-eyed quiet, Lysaer sighed and fingered the faceted rim. Broken light caught in the jewels of his rings, an icy point of cold at each knuckle. 'I know this piece well. It was granted to me during a state visit by the Mayor of Falgaire, then stolen in a raid by barbarians allied with the Shadow Master. You would do well to take heed. The man is a threat to every city in Athera, your own children even now at his mercy. You knew him well enough to receive his favour. Perhaps you also heard the name of the port that will come to shelter him next. Were this campaign in sole charge of Duke Bransian of Alestron, or my Commander-at-Arms, Lord Diegan, either one would use means to force the information from you. I shall give no such orders. Your collusion is a tragedy and I pity your twins. But I shall not try abuse to gain my ends. Your Master of Shadow held no such scruple with the man he took prisoner, who claims to have fired his shipyard.'
'Arithon kept no one captive,' Jinesse insisted.
Lysaer did not miss how her gaze stayed averted from the bowl. 'That's a falsehood most easily disproved. The wretch we saved off the Shearfast was left bound there to burn. Once we got him cleaned up, he was recognized as a former captain of Duke Bransian's, who had reason to bear malice toward your Master.'
But again, Lysaer is so busy spinning his own story that he's not hearing what the women are saying.
I think it's also an element of Lysaer's innate misogyny. Maybe because he still blames Queen Talera for leaving his father for a Pirate King's arms. But he is very quick to believe in Arithon's power to mislead and corrupt women.
And that's to Tharrick's advantage.
Lysaer met her with patience. 'When the victim regained his wits, he talked well enough. He said he had torched the s'Ffalenn shipworks, and for that, suffered rough interrogation. The scars on his body attest his honesty.'
'Arithon never beat him,' Jinesse said.
'No.' Lysaer regarded her in level, brutal truth. 'Alestron's officers did that for what looks like mishandled justice. What Captain Tharrick received from your Shadow Master were burns, inflicted with a knife blade heated red-hot, then assault with a bludgeon that left knots in his sides from broken ribs. Not pretty,' he finished. 'The additional blistering he suffered from the flames before he was rescued from Shearfast cause him pain aboard an anchored galley. My healer says he needs stillness and rest. Therefore, I came to beg your charity. Let Tharrick come to your cottage to recover from his injuries. My servant will be sent to administer remedies as needed. After seeing this man's condition first-hand, you may reconsider your opinion on the criminal your silence comes to shelter.'
Too upright to feign horror, since every mark on Tharrick's body was already infinitely well known to her, Jinesse sat braced in her chair. The depths of her feelings stayed masked behind acid and painful politeness. 'Bring your injured man here. I refuse none in need. But lest you hope falsely, my kindness to an outsider will lend no more credence to your plotting.'
And to Jinesse's as well.
It's a funny similarity between the brothers. Both see Jinesse's cottage as the appropriate place for a victim to convalesce. Though Arithon chose it because of trust of Jinesse. While Lysaer chose it because he thinks that seeing the damage done to Tharrick will sway Jinesse to his favor.
Anyway, he will station two guards outside her door for "protection". Jinesse tries to deny it, but Lysaer just steamrolls her:
Lysaer inclined his head in regal sympathy. 'I can hope you'll reconsider, if only to help your lost children. Have no fear. The ones in the village who disagree with your stand shall not be permitted to badger you. Should you wish to confide in me, you have only to send one of the men-at-arms. Rest assured, mistress, I will come.'
Dick.
But Lysaer did them a favor. Because Tharrick will be back under Jinesse's roof, the villagers will see him as one of them. And even if they now distrust Arithon himself, they won't turn in one of their own.
And so Tharrick is returned:
The litter bearers left, cracking crude jokes and laughing through the winter twilight that mantled pearly mist over the beachhead of Merior. As Jinesse closed the shutters against the sea damp and set about the chore of lighting candles, Tharrick stirred from the heavy sleep of drugged possets. He opened his eyes to the familiar sight of a pale-haired wraith of a woman with a profile like clear wax, underlit by the flutter of a tallow dip.
Of course, now they have to pretend to be strangers. But they still have a way to talk. And they have a very useful conversation:
Do you believe the Prince of the West?' she demanded point-blank at a whisper. Fresh in her mind lay the morning's trip to the market, where a neighbour had refused to sell her eggs. Another wife pointed and insisted that she was a creature enspelled, drawn into wickedness to abet the Master of Shadow.
Tharrick studied the edge of her profile, printed in moonlight against the outlines of gauzy, high-flying clouds. 'That Prince Arithon is evil? Or that he's guilty of criminal acts in the north?'
The crash of the surf masked their voices. Jinesse bent her neck, her features blocked in sudden dimness. 'You feel there's distinction?'
Tharrick stirred from discomfort that had little to do with blistered skin. 'The accusations fit too well to deny. Don't forget, I saw what he caused at Alestron.'
'You'll betray him,' Jinesse said.
'I ought to.' Tharrick shoved aside the corner of the coverlet and reached out a wrapped hand to cup her knee. 'I won't.' Aware of her porcelain fairness turned toward him, he swallowed. 'Corrupt, evil, sorcerer he may be, yet I am not Daelion Fatemaster to dare stand in judgment for his acts. By my lights, he's the only master I have served who treated me as a man. For that, I'd take Dharkaron's Spear in damnation before I'd turn coat and pass blithe beneath the Wheel to Athlieria. If blind service to Prince Lysaer's justice is moral right, I prefer to keep my own honour.'
The thing about Lysaer's pretty words and dazzling persuasion is that while they can be temporarily effective, they don't hold much strength when it comes to characters who know their own minds.
We see this a bit with the s'Brydions, actually. As mentioned last chapter and in Ships, the s'Brydions may be allied with Lysaer, but it's for their own specific reasons. And they don't really hold a lot of truck with the rest of his melodrama.
...and that raises an interesting question suddenly. Is Tharrick clan rather than townfolk? Being from Alestron, I feel like that's a distinct possibility.
Anyway, it's pretty clear that Arithon's attempt not to win this guy over failed utterly, but that's always how it works.
Jinesse asks what he'll do. Tharrick reminds her of his promise. He explains the plan: he was going to rejoin the others at Ath's brotherhood and take everything he knows about Lysaer's plans. He wants Jinesse to come too.
'I can't.' The thread that held Jinesse to composure came unravelled, and her slender body spasmed to the jerk of stifled sobs. 'Fiark and Feylind are endangered. Lysaer insists he's concerned for them. But he cannot be everywhere and atrocities happen where armies march. I fear what might come if my twins were caught in the path of the bloodshed intended to bring down the Master of Shadow.'
The brimming, liquid tracks of her tears and the anguish in her voice caused Tharrick to shove upright despite his pain. He gathered her against his warm shoulder. 'I may have chosen to throw my lot in with Arithon. That doesn't mean I support the ruin of small children. Come away with me. I'll help see your young ones restored to you.'
'So he did tell you where he was bound,' Jinesse murmured. Her sigh of relief unreeled through a throat tight with weeping.
'No,' Tharrick whispered against the crown of her head. 'But as Ath is my witness, he must have told you.'
Hah.
But there's the comparison beat I was waiting for. Regardless of whether or not Lysaer's concern for the children is genuine, he can't be everywhere, and atrocities "happen". Arithon, admittedly, is not managing an army. But he does command a force that he CAN control. He CAN keep his men from beating up a prisoner (or at least impose consequences severe enough that it won't happen again.) He CAN make it clear that he will not tolerate the abuse of children by people who work under him.
--
The sneak peek section is "Interlinks"
1. The Koriani are trying to break the wards of Althain Tower. Sethvir is unconcerned because he's busy magically watching: "on Avenor's brick battlements, a desolate royal wife sheds lonely tears; two exuberant, blond-haired children laugh on a brigantine's decks in Southshire harbour, in Vastmark, wyverns ride the winds like blown rags, their reptilian eyes alert for strayed sheep, while below them, a laggard band of shepherds herd their flocks through the defiles to lowland pastures . . ."
Hey, I SEE you sneak some extra sneak peeks in there.
2. Erlien's clansmen seem to have gotten themselves a nice stampede of raided livestock. Go them.
3. I'll quote this one in entirety:
In Merior by the Sea, patient as he waits out a widow's tortured silence, Lysaer s'Ilessid pens a letter to his wife tender in assurance that war is not yet in the offing, until his watch officer interrupts with the bad news that Jinesse and the man Tharrick have evaded the guard on the cottage, and a search of the village has failed to find them...
Hah, fuck you, Lysaer.
And with that, the chapter ends.
You know, basically any Tuesday.
That said, Arithon's ships are on fire, which puts a significant damper on his own plans to escape, while Lysaer knows exactly where he is and intends to lead an army to him. Oops.
So this chapter starts us with Tharrick. He was the former guard captain turned exile that we met last chapter. And unfortunately, he and Arithon share something else in common, aside from getting screwed over by the Fellowship and people in authority: they both have massive guilt complexes.
The balm of his victory instead left him hollow and distressed. The undaunted resumption of activity on the sandspit abraded the satisfaction from his achievement until he felt shamed to puzzled anguish. His single-handed attack had fairly ruined a man's hopes, and yet, no one close to Arithon stepped forth to berate him for the damage. The widow named his friend did not stint her hospitality. She did not speak out in censure. If her twin children were more aggressive in their loyalties, the morning she caught them paired at his bedside, accusing voices raised in a shocking turn of language, she scolded their mannerless tongues and packed them off on an errand to the fish market.
You and Arithon should go drinking together or something. You'd get along really well!
Poor Tharrick can't really do much, seeing as how he's recovering from injury and illness. And no little trauma, as sometimes, when feverish, he still hears the slash of the braided whip that the s'Brydions punished him with.
Arithon comes to visit, carrying herbs for simples. He chats with Jinesse, asking to borrow her trestle table so Dakar can copy some maps. He's having the twins watch him to keep him sober. They are so married.
Arithon does tell Jinesse that if Dakar moans too much or gets too crude, he'll send two of his men to sit on him so Jinesse can sew his mouth shut. Probably because Arithon is about the size of a wet cat and can't do it himself. Anyway, Jinesse figures she'd hardly notice bad language considering...well...the twins.
Arithon's also here to check on Tharrick. Tharrick's eye view of things is pretty interesting:
The pair entered the sickroom, the widow with her face flushed pink above her blouse and her unburdened hands given to fidgeting with her skirts. Through his days of convalescence, Tharrick had taken quiet pleasure in her presence. She had a certain shy grace in those moments when she believed no one watched. But Arithon set her on edge. His quick, light movement and contained self-command hurled her off course like a moth thrown into strong light.
We get some new description of Arithon, plus a look at the expertise acquired from Elaira:
Jinesse was not alone in feeling unnerved before the intensity of Arithon's regard. With the window at his back, his face looked drawn to hollows, the eyes like sharp points sunk in pits. His tone held the edge of burr, struck from impatience or exhaustion as he said, 'Stay with the red clover for the burns. That gash on the thigh still looks inflamed. Along with elecampane and cone-flower, let's add wild thyme, and of course, keep on with the betony.'
He does almost collapse from exhaustion, leading Jinesse to almost-yell at him. Which, given what we know of Jinesse, is pretty startling. That's just how aggravating Arithon is, of course, to get the shrinking violet to raise her voice at him. Fucking martyr. Jinesse gets him to sit down for a bit, and we get more purple prose, sad exhaustion style.
To everyone's astqnishment, most of all his own, the Prince of Rathain did her bidding. Up close, he looked drawn beneath his tan. His hair was caught in pitchy tangles at the temples where he had raked it back with knuckles still smeared from green planks. The thumbnail on his left hand was swollen black, perhaps from a mis-struck mallet. Unable to bear his appearance straight on, the widow threw open the curtains to flush out the cloying reek of herbs.
Breezes off the ocean fingered the loosened laces of Arithon's shirt. The impersonal touch relaxed him, or else the flood of fresh air. He tipped his crown to rest against the chair back and almost instantly fell asleep.
Aw.
And Tharrick is not immune to this, of course:
Tharrick surrendered his chafed wrist to the widow for dressing, and pondered the incongruity, how unlikely it seemed, that a sorcerer of such black reputation could behave in mild, trusting innocence.
To his dismay, he found he had mused his thought aloud.
Jinesse slapped a heated strip of linen over the applied layer of poultice paste brusquely enough to raise a sting. 'Arithon's driving himself half to death in that shipyard!' At Tharrick's subdued flinch, she gentled her touch with the wrapping. 'They say he's not slept in two days beyond catnaps, and Ath show him mercy, just look at his hands! He's Athera's own Masterbard, and criminal indeed, to dare risk his gift to common labour!'
Poor Tharrick continues to feel miserable. Seriously, dude. You two really need to hang out. You can cry on each other's shoulders and confess how everything is your faults. It'd be fun.
Jinesse apologizes for her outburst, saying that Arithon insisted that Tharrick wasn't at fault (of course he did), but the setback is pretty harsh.
They discuss Arithon's alleged misdeeds. Jinesse admits that she doesn't know if he's guilty of the things he's charged with, but that he'd charged her to measure him by his behavior, and so far he's done well with that. He's got the respect of the villagers. He's never cheated anyone or lied. And the only magic he's worked is with music.
Tharrick seems to have a bit of Nightingale syndrome, or whatever it's called when a patient falls in love with his nurse:
Flat on his back with cracked ribs, and never in his life more helpless, 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 armoury killed seven men. I was there.'
Jinesse doesn't contradict him. Arithon's been very closed-mouthed about all of it, without trying to make excuses or denials. (He probably could consider explaining things SOMETIMES actually.) Tharrick asks her what she thinks, and her take is more pragmatic: She doesn't think the village needs to get involved. Arithon never set roots here. He'd always intended to flee to sea.
Tharrick asks if Arithon means to take up piracy. Jinesse is shocked by this, saying that there's no evidence. There were no plans to arm the brigantines, and she believed he intended to outrun Lysaer instead.
They finish the bandaging in silence. Arithon's asleep "pliant as a scarecrow" and Tharrick's thoughtful.
-
So Tharrick continues to recover. We get snippets of what's going outside, like a marital spat between Arithon and Dakar:
'I don't care blazes if an iyat has warped all your quill pens! If you're too fat and slack to chalk out a simple bane-ward, 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 . . .'
Later, he hears Arithon discussing finances: not great. And the forces from Alestron are coming. Dakar urges him to give up the ship yard, take the silver he has left and flee in his sloop. Arithon has no intention of doing so, and conscripts Dakar into helping with scrying efforts.
Tharrick asks Jinesse why Arithon is so careless as to let him eavesdrop on his plans. Jinesse answers straightforward enough: Arithon doesn't feel like he has anything to hide.
Happily Tharrick's health is improving enough to stop the painkilling "posset" - Arithon doesn't want Tharrick to end up addicted to the poppy. Tharrick has the same frustrated confusion that we all get around Arithon from time to time, asking why the hell Arithon cares about him.
Jinesse doesn't really have an answer except to tell him of Arithon's offer to have him taken, by cart, to sanctuary at the hostel with the adepts of Ath. He can leave as soon as he's well enough to travel.
Tharrick proves, once again, that he and Arithon really should be lifelong friends:
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.'
And MAYBE his Florence Nightingale syndrome isn't all one way:
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 colour by embarrassment. 'You know I have no prospects.'
Against habit, the widow's smile broadened. 'My dear man, forgive me. But you're going to have to be back up and walking before that becomes anybody's worry.'
Dude, you ain't banging anyone until your dick works again. (But...I'm not sure she minds the rest.)
--
I like this next bit:
Denied cause for outrage, reft of every justification for his enmity against the Shadow Master, Tharrick exerted his last, stubborn pride to arise from his bed and recover. From his faltering first steps across the widow's cottage, his progress seemed inextricably paired with the patching of the damaged brigantine his act of revenge had holed through.
Seriously. Be friends. You both have massive guilt complexes and are motivated by spite. It'd be great.
So Tharrick starts exploring the town. He's stiff and silent, because he knows what's coming. He knows exactly what kind of destruction Duke Bransian can unleash. And well, he's not exactly welcome thanks to the whole burning the shipyard thing.
Unfortunately, Tharrick knows the s'Brydions' capabilities. He knows the the geography. So he knows exactly how little time they have left.
Eventually, Tharrick makes his way to the shipyard: where, fascinatingly, he's greeted with indifference rather than animosity:
Even the master joiner, who had ordered his beatings and tried unspeakable means to force his silence, showed no rancour at his presence. Arithon's will had made itself felt. Enemy though he was, none dared to raise word or hand against him. All were ruled by their master's ruthless tongue and his fever-pitched driving purpose. The salvage effort on the damaged brigantine already showed a near-complete patch at her bow; the one still in frames on her bedlogs lay changed, half-cannibalized for her wood, then lessened in length and faired ready for planking. A less-ambitious vessel with a shorter sheerline took shape, fitted here and there between the yellow of new spruce with the odd checked timber fished together from the derelict lugger.
And Tharrick is moved by the progress they're making. Because he and Arithon are bosom buddies, at heart:
Struck by a stabbing, unhappy urge to weep, Tharrick held his chin in stiff pride. He would not bend before awe, would not spin and run to the widow's cottage to hide his face in shame. The man who had forgiven his malice in mercy would be shown the qualities which had earned his past captaincy in Alestron. In hesitant steps on the fringes, Tharrick began to lend his help. If his mending ribs would not let him wheel a handcart, or his palms were too tender to wield a pod auger to drill holes for treenails in hardened oak, he could steady a plank for the plane on the trestles, or run errands, or turn dowels to pin timbers and ribs. He could stoke the fire in the boiler shed, and maybe, for his conscience, regain a small measure of the self-respect he had lost to disgrace and harsh exile.
And because Arithon is just as much of a prickly asshole, three days in, Tharrick finds silver left on the table in his name. Tharrick gets pissed off by this, but Jinesse explains:
Drawn by the bang as he hurled open the casement, Jinesse caught his wrist and stopped his attempt to fling the coins into the fallow tangle of her garden. 'Tharrick, no. What are you thinking? Arithon doesn't run a slave yard. Neither does he give grown men charity. He said if you can't be bothered to collect your pay with the others, this was the last time he'd cover for your mistakes.'
Congratulations, Tharrick, you're an employee now. Have you considered unionizing?
Tharrick admits that Arithon's "a demon for forcing a man to think". Jinesse agrees: not just men, and tells him about her trip to Innish. And if nothing else, Tharrick proves he has a lot more game than Arithon does. He's holding her hands by the end of the story. And they sit together like that until the twins inevitably show up to interrupt.
--
We drift ahead, time wise, to a storm. It's likely slowing down Lysaer's army, which is good, but there are some risks to the shipyard. When Tharrick shows up for work, he finds that "all three shifts" were sent to make repairs in the village instead of working on the ship. Because of course.
Arithon's still working though. And Tharrick and he actually get a chance to talk.
Quiet to one side, his hair newly trimmed and yesterday's stubble shaven clean, Tharrick ventured the first comment he had dared since making his own way at the shipyard. 'It's likely your generosity has doomed the last hull.'
Arithon crammed another billet into the stove, then yanked back his hand as the sparks flew. 'If so, that was my choice to make.'
'I'm not a green fool.' Tharrick envied the neat, practised speed that hurled each split piece of kindling over the heat-rippled bed of hot ash. 'I've led men. Your example makes them work until their hearts burst to meet an impossible standard.'
A slick, cold laugh wrung from the Shadow Master's throat as he clashed the fire door closed. 'You're mistaken.' He straightened, reduced to lean contours sketched out in a silverpoint gleam of wet skin. His eyes were derisive and heavy with fatigue as he regarded the former guardsman who offered his tentative respect. 'I happen to have employed every wood-sawyer and carpenter inside of thirty leagues. Had I not sent the joiners, we'd have gotten every fishwife and her man's favourite marlinespike fouling the works here by noon. In case you hadn't noticed, the framing's all done. It's the caulkers I can't spare, and I needed some excuse to keep the fasteners overtime with the planking.'
Unapologetic, ill-tempered, Arithon sidestepped and slipped past. Abandoned to an eddied whirl of air, Tharrick swallowed back humiliation. The widow's observation was borne out with sharp vengeance, that if the Shadow Master's generosity could be held beyond reproach, it was not to be mistaken for his friendship.
Nah, Tharrick. Arithon likes you. He's just a dick. You'll get used to that. You could have asked Lysaer before, well. Never mind.
Anyway, you'll learn soon enough how Arithon loves everybody very much and it pisses him off to no end.
Eventually folks return, and the master joiner pulls Arithon aside to express some concern. Arithon is not particularly receptive. But his real concern is Tharrick:
'No.' The master joiner braced rangy shoulders against the urgency of those green eyes upon him. 'You're losing your sense of propriety. This morning Tharrick admired your judgment and you threw back his words in his face.'
Arithon's lips thinned into instant contempt. 'In case you'd failed to notice, Tharrick's all too quick to carve life up into absolutes. I can do very well without his worshipful admiration. Not when the reckoning is likely as not to get him killed by the hand of his own duke!'
Told you, Tharrick. You're friends already.
Anyway, the master joiner is no match for Arithon's general assholishness, so he goes back to work.
We hear some gossip the next day. Erlien's clanfolk have apparently done their work well. A bridge collapsed beneath one of the mercenary troops. No one died, but the delay definitely caused an uproar.
Ms. Wurts gives us some retroactive fan service while telling us that Arithon is clad in a shirt for the first time in weeks ("the light in his hair like spilled ink.) And the sole surviving brigantine is launched.
And Tharrick and Arithon share a moment:
While sailhands recruited from the south shore taverns waded after, to catch lines and launch longboats to warp the floated hull to a mooring, Tharrick was among the first to approach and offer his congratulations. Arithon returned a quick, brilliant smile that faded as the former guardsman's gaze shifted to encompass the smaller hull still poised forlorn on her ways.
Understanding flashed wordless between them. Of ten ships planned at the outset, one brigantine in the water might be all that Arithon's best effort could garner. As fishermen said, his luck neared the shoals; the hour was too late to save the second.
Aw. There's still reason to celebrate though. The new ship is named the "Khetienn", which is the old tongue word for the black and gold leopard that makes up the s'Ffalenn royal arms. Arithon and Dakar end up leaving the party early (Dakar is not happy about it). Tharrick slips away too.
So Arithon and Jinesse discuss his plans. He's sailing away in the Talliarthe (his sloop), while a trader captain is going to take the Khetienn in tow. She'll be completed in Southshire on credit.
Tharrick makes his presence known and Arithon is unconcerned. This leads to another Moment:
'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.
Aw.
Tharrick now feels "restored to dignity and manhood", a turn of phrase that even I find a little much. But it inspires him to volunteer something. He tells Arithon not to scuttle the incomplete brigantine. I don't quite follow what he wants to do, but I THINK he's planning some kind of decoy with it.
Anyway, Arithon is astonished. And they share MORE of a Moment:
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 Fate-master?' 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.'
Aw.
They ARE friends now. Too bad there's no time to go drinking. But maybe next time!
It's nice to see Arithon making friends in other ways besides kidnapping people! So Arithon and Dakar are off, and we get this lovely, little paragraph to fuel my shipper heart:
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.'
---
The subchapter is Fugitives:
We learn the next day that the twins managed to stow away aboard the Khetienn. Of course they did. Jinesse is devastated and terrified:
'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.
...Tharrick really does have game, doesn't he?
Anyway, he reassures her that Arithon's most trusted hands are aboard the Khetienn. And he's always kept his men very disciplined (Tharrick's own well being can attest to that.):
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.
It is, of course, a not very subtle contrast to the brutal and awful actions of a lot of the people in Lysaer's army. Particularly against the clansfolk. Lysaer has no interest in reining his own people in when their hatred and passions serve his purpose.
It's a rather funny lesson. Lysaer is probably far more loved by his men than Arithon is his. He rules solely through respect, while Arithon mixes some level of fear in his. But it's clear who the better leader is of the two.
Anyway, Tharrick has to talk Jinesse out of a rash attempt to follow the kids. He promises that when the second brigantine is launched, he'll go himself to Southshire and track the kids down. Aw.
Unfortunately, poor Jinesse can't really confide in anyone else. They all respect Arithon, as she does, but they don't know who he really is or the inherent danger. But at least Tharrick understands. And well, things continue to progress nicely. Ahem.
So the second ship, now dubbed the Shearfast (and you can definitely see the difference in naming conventions) is ready. A "nimble little sailhand" was hired to captain it, and Tharrick goes off. Poor Jinesse is left weeping and alone again.
So they're off. And the warships are not very far away. Tharrick knows exactly what will happen to him if he's caught: and it'll be much worse than a flogging.
They end up taking the ship through the reefs. It's their one advantage: they know how to sail them, while the galleys don't. The galleys are catching up, but start to have trouble: one goes completely belly up on a reef. Another has to stop to tend the first. Another gets beached.
Unfortunately, thee are fifteen galleys after them. Three down is good but not great. But there's a storm coming.
And there's a bolt of light in the sky. Crap. It's Lysaer. The Shearfast is about to go kaboom. They get ready to fight or die, but Tharrick has an idea. He can delay the pursuers by staying behind while the others flee to shore and claim sanctuary in the hostel of Ath's brotherhood.
So what does Tharrick have in mind?
So simple, Tharrick thought; the hoodwink he proposed should be obvious. He steeled his resolve and explained. 'I was the duke's man. I wrecked your master's shipyard. Who could believe I would be here alive, except as Arithon's bound prisoner?'
The others like the idea, but they're endearingly concerned for Tharrick, who's going to be left tied up in a burning ship. Tharrick doesn't like that much either, but if they find him before he burns, he should be able to mislead them long enough to buy the others time.
Though he won't be staying alone. The captain's staying behind too. But with far grimmer intent:
'All right, listen up!' cracked the captain. 'I stay, and one other. We'll draw straws to see who bids for shore leave.'
Tharrick voiced an immediate protest, cut silent as the captain yanked the sash off his waist to twist into use as a gag. 'There has to be a sacrifice,' he said as he tied off the cloth in desperation. 'If we leave an empty ship, your place will be questioned. Then they're sure to mount a search for survivors.'
Damn. This captain joins the list of awesome, forever unnamed random side characters in this series.
Though Tharrick's not having a fun time either:
Shearfast's crewman raced light-footed from the hold. Behind, for cold necessity, they left the whispered lick of flame and a poisonous, pitch-fed haze of smoke. Tharrick coughed. His throat closed and his eyes ran. The thick fumes sickened him to dizziness. He felt as though he were falling headlong through the very gates of Sithaer. Driven senseless by the metallic taste of fear, dazed beyond reason by poisoned air, he did not remember giving way to terrified screams, muffled to whimpers by the gag. Nor did he keep any shred of raw courage as he wrenched like a beast at the rope ties.
Awareness became wrapped in an inferno. Skin knew again the blistering kiss of agony as the red snap of fire chewed through the planks overhead. The thumps of a distant scuffle made no sense, nor the mazed clang of steel, followed by the defiant last shout of the gamecock captain. 'Kill the prisoner!'
The cry that bought Tharrick his chance for salvation rang through the steel clash of weapons. A fallen body thudded, kicking in nerve-fired death throes. Then a dying man choked out a rattling gasp and slammed through the companionway door, the blade through his chest a glistening reflection doused in fresh running blood.
Damn, that captain is hardcore. (And reminds me a little of the very first chapter. When the Amroth sailors find an unconscious Arithon with another crewman, who attacks them rather than be rescued/captured.)
Anyway, Tharrick is found and rescued, just in time.
--
The last subchapter is Landfall.
So now we're back at Merior, where someone is making a grand entrance:
Lysaer s'Ilessid set foot on the damp sands of Merior, still dissatisfied over the report sent back from the galley which had run down the fugitive vessel. Of an unknown number of enemy crewmen, two had been slain in the melee of boarding. The sole survivor brought back for questioning was himself a prisoner of the Shadow Master, notched in scars from recent cruel handling, and unconscious from fresh burns and smoke poisoning.
Duke Bransian's crack captains had been too busy sparing the one life to mount a search of the waters for longboats.
Lysaer is frustrated by this. The Alestron mercenaries had boarded the ship, rather than Lysaer's own men, and they hadn't been trained to deal with pirate tactics.
There's some lovely imagery here:
A salt-laden gust parted Lysaer's fair hair as he trained his stormy regard up the beachhead. The rain had stopped. Mid-afternoon light shafted through broken clouds. The puddles wore a leaden sheen, and a shimmer of dipped silver played over the drenched crowns of the palm groves. Nestled in gloom as though uninhabited, the whitewashed cottages of Merior greeted his landing with wooden plank doors and pegged shutters shut fast.
The harbour stretched grey and empty as the land, choppy waters peppered with vacant moorings. The local fishing fleet would return with the dusk, as on any ordinary day. Up the strand, a sullen, black streamer of smoke spiralled on the wind from the site of Arithon's shipyard. No fugitives had sought to cross the cordon of mercenaries that blocked Scimlade Tip from the mainland; the single lugger found setting fish traps in the bay had offered no hostilities when flagged down for questioning.
And of course, Arithon had been very careful. So any inquiries about "the Master of Shadow" had just drawn blank confusion from anyone questioned. So Arithon's scampered off, no clues behind.
Lysaer does at least get a dramatic line:
'You think he'll be back?' Prepared to disagree, Diegan pushed up his helm to scrape his damp hair off his brow.
'No.' Lysaer spun in a flapping storm of oilcloth and stalked to the edge of the tidemark. 'The fugitive ship which burned before our eyes was the easiest chance we had to track him. Now that option's lost, he'll have the whole ocean in which to take cover. We're balked, but not crippled. The stamp of his design can never be mistaken for merchant shipping. Wherever the Shadow Master plans to make landfall, I'll find the means to be waiting.'
Well, if Lysaer can do nothing else, he can, at least, win over the whole damn village:
At twilight, when the fishing luggers sailed homeward to find their cove patrolled by war galleys and their shores cluttered with encampments of mercenaries, knots of shouting men and a congregation of goodwives converged upon the beaten earth of the fish market. A groomed contingent of Avenor's senior officers turned out and met them to assure their prince would answer their complaints. By the fluttered, ruddy light of pitch torches, on a dais constructed of fish barrels and planks, the Prince of the West awaited in a surcoat edged in braided bullion. In token of royal rank he wore only a gold circlet. Against all advice, he was not armed. His bodyguard remained with the longboats, and only Alestron's fleet admiral and two officers attended at his right hand.
And the first thing he does is declare a celebration (with a cask provided from his own stores):
Again Lysaer waited for the shouts to die down. 'Your village has just been spared from the designs of great evil, and the grasp of a man of such resource and cunning, none here could know the extent of his ill intentions. I speak of the one you call Arithon, known in the north as Teir's'Ffalenn and the Master of Shadow.'
And Lysaer starts his speech:
This time when hubbub arose, Lysaer cut clearly through the clamour. 'During his years among you, he has exploited your trust, lured blameless craftsmen into dishonest service, and spent stolen funds to outfit a fleet designed and intended for piracy. I'm here tonight to expose his bloody history, and to dispel without question every doubt to be raised against the criminal intent he sought to hide.'
The quiet at this grew profound. Muscular men in patched oilskins and their goodwives in their aprons spangled with cod scales packed into a solid and threatening body. Before the ranks of inimical faces, Lysaer resumed unperturbed. In clear, magisterial elegance, he presented his case, beginning with the wrongs done his family on his homeworld of Dascen Elur. There, the s'Ffalenn bent for sea raids had been documented by royal magistrates for seven generations. The toll of damaged lives was impressive. Stirred to forceful resolve, the fair-haired prince related his eyewitness account of the slaughter at Deshir Forest. Other transgressions at Jaelot and Alestron were confirmed by Duke Bransian's officer. He ended with the broad-scale act of destruction which had torched the trade fleet at Minderl Bay.
The villagers remained unconvinced.
A few in the front ranks crossed their arms in disgust, unimpressed with foreign news that held little bearing upon the daily concerns of their fishing fleet.
'Is it possible you think the man who sheltered here was not one and the same person?' Lysaer asked. 'Let me say why that fails to surprise me.' He went on to describe the Shadow Master's appearance and habits in a damning array of detail. He spoke of innocents diabolically corrupted, small children taught to cut the throats of the wounded lying helpless in their blood on the field. His description was dire and graphic enough to wring any parent to distress.
Before Lysaer's forthright and painful self-honesty, Arithon, in retrospect, seemed shady as a night thief. Natural reticence felt like dishonest concealment, and leashed emotion, the mark of a cold, scheming mind.
Lysaer continues, of course, with another great line:
'This is a man whose kindness is drawn in sharp calculation, whose every word and act masks a hidden motive. Pity does not move him. His code is base deceit. The people he befriends are as game pieces, and if violent death suits the stripe of his design, not even babes are exempt.'
This gets a response. The boardinghouse lady defends Arithon, saying he had as much compassion for children as "any man gifted with fatherhood", and she singles out Jinesse as being able to say as much.
Poor Jinesse. And Lysaer definitely lays on the purple prose here:
Golden, majestic, the Prince of the West did not address her on the level of the crowd. He caught her bird-boned hand in a sure, warm grip, and as if she were wellborn and precious, drew her up the plank step to the dais. He gave her no chance for embarrassed recrimination. His gaze, blue as unflawed sky, stayed direct and fixed on her face. 'I'm grieved indeed to see a man with no scruples delude an upright goodwife such as you.'
Jinesse heaved a tight breath, her fingers grown damp and starting to tremble. She searched the heart-stopping, beautiful male features beneath the circlet and cap of pale hair. She found no reassurance, no trace of the charlatan in the square, honest line of his jaw and the sculptured slope of his cheekbones. His unclouded eyes reflected back calm concern and unimpeachable sincerity.
'Forgive me,' said the prince in a gentleness very different than the mettlesome, biting irony of the Shadow Master. 'I see I've struck hurtfully close to the mark. I never intended to grieve you.'
Jinesse pushed away the uneasy recollection of green eyes, heavy with shadows too impenetrably deep to yield their mystery. 'Master Arithon showed only kindness to my twins. I cannot believe he'd cause them harm.'
Unfortunately, Lysaer digs into a sore spot when he asks where the children are now. He accuses Arithon of luring the children away, and calls them clay in his hands.
'It may not be too late,' the prince reassured, his voice pitched as well for the villagers gathered beneath the dais. The people, all unwitting, had crowded closer to hang on each word as he spoke. 'I have an army and Alestron's fleet of war galleys. We are highly mobile, well supplied, and most able to mount swift pursuit. I only need know where the Master of Shadow has gone. Prompt action could restore your lost twins to your side.'
Jinesse recovered the courage to draw back. 'What you offer is a war! That could as easily drown them in Ath's oceans to share a grave in the deeps with their father.'
'Perhaps,' Lysaer said equably. 'Would you rather Dharkaron Avenger should meet and judge their spirits first? If the Wheel's turning took them in some machination of the Shadow Master's, they could find their damnation as well.'
'How dramatic,' Jinesse said in a stiff-backed distaste that deplored his choice of public venue. 'We've known Arithon as a fair-minded man for the better part of a year. On your word, in just one afternoon, we're to accept the greater mercy of your judgment?'
Yet her composure crumbled just enough for Lysaer to glean a ruler's insight: if the villagers of Merior had sheltered Arithon in ignorance, this one woman had been aware of his identity beforetime. An added depth of grief pinched her features as she challenged, 'What of the crew who manned the Shearfast? Where was your vaunted pity when your galleys ran them down and let them burn?'
'Your husband was aboard?' Lysaer probed softly.
Jinesse jerked her fingers from his clasp. Her wide-eyed flash of resentment transformed to dismay as she spun and flounced off of the dais.
It's interesting to see the contrasting way that Arithon and Lysaer's personal charisma works.
Lysaer is very effective when it comes to large groups of people. He knows how to play on their insecurities and their hatreds and biases. And his personal charisma one on one is dazzling.
But Arithon wins an individual person's heart. In spite of them. In spite of himself.
Anyway, Lysaer orders his men to see that Jinesse gets home safely, then returns to playing the crowd. He offers his own men to answer any questions about Minderl Bay. Diegan will talk about Tal Quorin/Strakewood. And there are others from Jaelot and Alestron. And then, of course:
Lysaer raised his arms. His full, embroidered sleeves fell away from his wrists as he stretched his hands wide and summoned the powers of his birth gift. A flood of golden light washed the fish market. It rinsed through the flames in the torches, and built, blinding, dazzling, until the eye could not separate the figure of the prince from the overwhelming, miraculous glare.
Lysaer's voice rolled over the dismayed gasps of the awestruck fisherfolk at his feet. 'My gift of light is a full match for the Master of Shadow! Be assured I shall not rest until this land is safe, and his evil designs are eradicated.'
--
And yep, we're told via Jinesse, who hears it from the boardinghouse lady. Lysaer's tactics are successful. Once the beer and wine start flowing, people started talking. They brought back the old gossip about the Black Drake, and Jinesse's own voyage on the Taliarthe. And of course...
" Most telling of all was Arithon's reticence. The fact he had no confidant, that he never shared the least clue to his intentions became the most damning fact against him. Paired with first-hand accounts of his atrocities in the north, such self-possessed privacy in hindsight became the quiet of a secret, scheming mind.
Arithon is never able to not shoot himself in the foot, is he?
But then again, given what happened to that poor captain from Minderl Bay, maybe this is safer.
There is better news:
By roundabout means, the landlady reached the news she had been appointed to deliver. 'When the galley's crew boarded and took Shearfast, they insist only two of Arithon's sailors met them. Those refused quarter and fought to the death, but not to save their command. They had already fired the new hull to scuttle her. Despite the flames, the duke's officers searched the hold. They found a bound man held captive below decks. He was cut loose while unconscious, and is now in the care of Prince Lysaer's personal healer.'
Jinesse looked up from the skirt she had been mending, her needle poised at an agonized angle between stitches she had jerked much too tight. The name of Tharrick hung unspoken as she said, 'But Arithon kept no one prisoner.'
The boardinghouse landlady sniffed and drizzled honey over one of the pastries. 'I said so. The Prince of the West showed no opinion on the matter, but looked me through as though I were a child in sad want of wisdom.'
As brilliant and effective as Lysaer is, we can see how his own weaknesses trip him up here. And maybe it's the curse, in part, helping him along. But when he hears someone defending Arithon, or even just disagreeing with a negative comment ABOUT Arithon, he assumes they're foolish and misled. And so he doesn't even think that this might be a trick.
Jinesse on the other hand thinks about how it "seemed entirely plausible" that the doomed crew might have turned on Tharrick for belated revenge. She asks the landlady what she'll say.
'Why, nothing.' The landlady flicked crumbs from her blouse and gave a shrug as dour as a fisherman's. 'Let these outsiders untangle their own misadventures. We're not traderfolk, to hang our daily lives upon rumours. The mackerel won't swim to the net any better should we buy and sell talk like informants. If Arithon's evil, that's his own affair. He tried no foul acts in our village.' But her forceful, brusque note as she ended spoke of doubts irrevocably seeded.
The landlady folded the linen she had used to pack the scones. 'With only two bodies found to be counted, Prince Lysaer wished you to hear there may have been other survivors.' As she arose and smoothed her skirts over her ample thighs, she added on afterthought, 'His Grace seems anxious to know the number of Shearfast's crew. They were Arithon's people, I told him.'
Miserable and mute, Jinesse watched the other woman sweep past the pantry to let herself out. Paused at the threshold on departure, her full-lipped, cattiest smile as much for Lysaer's young officer, listening at his post outside the doorway, the landlady concluded her last line. 'I said, why ever should we care?'
It's kind of interesting. Before, Tharrick was outcast, essentially, for his damage to Arithon's shipyards. Now, he's one of them. The landlady will protect him. Arithon himself, however, is in doubt.
But I love that closing line.
-
So the next morning, Lysaer visits. He's made inquiries and knows that her husband drowned a year past. And while he's assuming she was attached to one of the men at the Shearfast, he's "prepared to treat her grief with compassion."
And Jinesse's perception of him is very interesting:
The elegance and manners of old blood royalty should not have upset her poise, Jinesse thought. Arithon's disconcerting, satirical directness had never made her feel embarrassed for unrefined origins, nor had his bearing afflicted her with apologetic confusion over whether or not she should curtsy.
Resplendent in glossy silk, and a chain of gold and matched sapphires, Lysaer stepped across the waxed boards of her parlour and caught her chapped fingers away from her habitual urge to fidget. 'Come sit,' he insisted.
And then:
Memories of another prince in rough linen who had set her just as deftly on a woodpile dogged her thoughts as she sought once again to plumb royal character through a face. Where Arithon had shown her discomfiting reticence and a perception forthright enough to wound, Prince Lysaer seemed candid and direct as clear sunlight. His dress was rich without being ostentatious. The breathtaking effect of overpowering male beauty he countered in personal warmth that lent an effect no less awesome.
But here, HERE is interesting:
The study he flicked over the room's rude interior held detached interest, until the fired glitter of the fine, cut glass bowl on her dish shelves snagged his interest. His surprise was genuine as he crossed the room on a stride. The sculpted shape of his hand bore an uncanny resemblance to Arithon's as he lifted the Falgaire crystal from the shelf.
I think this is the first time, ever, someone actually picked up on a physical resemblance between Lysaer and Arithon. They're both so visually associated with their respective paternal lines, that, except maybe for Lysaer's hair color and Arithon's size, Talera had never left a mark at all.
But apparently, there is something shared: in the shape of their hands. And Jinesse is the only person to have ever seen it.
Of course, the bowl itself came from the raid of Lysaer's caravan. And of course, Lysaer spins the story:
When Jinesse did not favour him with more than her stony-eyed quiet, Lysaer sighed and fingered the faceted rim. Broken light caught in the jewels of his rings, an icy point of cold at each knuckle. 'I know this piece well. It was granted to me during a state visit by the Mayor of Falgaire, then stolen in a raid by barbarians allied with the Shadow Master. You would do well to take heed. The man is a threat to every city in Athera, your own children even now at his mercy. You knew him well enough to receive his favour. Perhaps you also heard the name of the port that will come to shelter him next. Were this campaign in sole charge of Duke Bransian of Alestron, or my Commander-at-Arms, Lord Diegan, either one would use means to force the information from you. I shall give no such orders. Your collusion is a tragedy and I pity your twins. But I shall not try abuse to gain my ends. Your Master of Shadow held no such scruple with the man he took prisoner, who claims to have fired his shipyard.'
'Arithon kept no one captive,' Jinesse insisted.
Lysaer did not miss how her gaze stayed averted from the bowl. 'That's a falsehood most easily disproved. The wretch we saved off the Shearfast was left bound there to burn. Once we got him cleaned up, he was recognized as a former captain of Duke Bransian's, who had reason to bear malice toward your Master.'
But again, Lysaer is so busy spinning his own story that he's not hearing what the women are saying.
I think it's also an element of Lysaer's innate misogyny. Maybe because he still blames Queen Talera for leaving his father for a Pirate King's arms. But he is very quick to believe in Arithon's power to mislead and corrupt women.
And that's to Tharrick's advantage.
Lysaer met her with patience. 'When the victim regained his wits, he talked well enough. He said he had torched the s'Ffalenn shipworks, and for that, suffered rough interrogation. The scars on his body attest his honesty.'
'Arithon never beat him,' Jinesse said.
'No.' Lysaer regarded her in level, brutal truth. 'Alestron's officers did that for what looks like mishandled justice. What Captain Tharrick received from your Shadow Master were burns, inflicted with a knife blade heated red-hot, then assault with a bludgeon that left knots in his sides from broken ribs. Not pretty,' he finished. 'The additional blistering he suffered from the flames before he was rescued from Shearfast cause him pain aboard an anchored galley. My healer says he needs stillness and rest. Therefore, I came to beg your charity. Let Tharrick come to your cottage to recover from his injuries. My servant will be sent to administer remedies as needed. After seeing this man's condition first-hand, you may reconsider your opinion on the criminal your silence comes to shelter.'
Too upright to feign horror, since every mark on Tharrick's body was already infinitely well known to her, Jinesse sat braced in her chair. The depths of her feelings stayed masked behind acid and painful politeness. 'Bring your injured man here. I refuse none in need. But lest you hope falsely, my kindness to an outsider will lend no more credence to your plotting.'
And to Jinesse's as well.
It's a funny similarity between the brothers. Both see Jinesse's cottage as the appropriate place for a victim to convalesce. Though Arithon chose it because of trust of Jinesse. While Lysaer chose it because he thinks that seeing the damage done to Tharrick will sway Jinesse to his favor.
Anyway, he will station two guards outside her door for "protection". Jinesse tries to deny it, but Lysaer just steamrolls her:
Lysaer inclined his head in regal sympathy. 'I can hope you'll reconsider, if only to help your lost children. Have no fear. The ones in the village who disagree with your stand shall not be permitted to badger you. Should you wish to confide in me, you have only to send one of the men-at-arms. Rest assured, mistress, I will come.'
Dick.
But Lysaer did them a favor. Because Tharrick will be back under Jinesse's roof, the villagers will see him as one of them. And even if they now distrust Arithon himself, they won't turn in one of their own.
And so Tharrick is returned:
The litter bearers left, cracking crude jokes and laughing through the winter twilight that mantled pearly mist over the beachhead of Merior. As Jinesse closed the shutters against the sea damp and set about the chore of lighting candles, Tharrick stirred from the heavy sleep of drugged possets. He opened his eyes to the familiar sight of a pale-haired wraith of a woman with a profile like clear wax, underlit by the flutter of a tallow dip.
Of course, now they have to pretend to be strangers. But they still have a way to talk. And they have a very useful conversation:
Do you believe the Prince of the West?' she demanded point-blank at a whisper. Fresh in her mind lay the morning's trip to the market, where a neighbour had refused to sell her eggs. Another wife pointed and insisted that she was a creature enspelled, drawn into wickedness to abet the Master of Shadow.
Tharrick studied the edge of her profile, printed in moonlight against the outlines of gauzy, high-flying clouds. 'That Prince Arithon is evil? Or that he's guilty of criminal acts in the north?'
The crash of the surf masked their voices. Jinesse bent her neck, her features blocked in sudden dimness. 'You feel there's distinction?'
Tharrick stirred from discomfort that had little to do with blistered skin. 'The accusations fit too well to deny. Don't forget, I saw what he caused at Alestron.'
'You'll betray him,' Jinesse said.
'I ought to.' Tharrick shoved aside the corner of the coverlet and reached out a wrapped hand to cup her knee. 'I won't.' Aware of her porcelain fairness turned toward him, he swallowed. 'Corrupt, evil, sorcerer he may be, yet I am not Daelion Fatemaster to dare stand in judgment for his acts. By my lights, he's the only master I have served who treated me as a man. For that, I'd take Dharkaron's Spear in damnation before I'd turn coat and pass blithe beneath the Wheel to Athlieria. If blind service to Prince Lysaer's justice is moral right, I prefer to keep my own honour.'
The thing about Lysaer's pretty words and dazzling persuasion is that while they can be temporarily effective, they don't hold much strength when it comes to characters who know their own minds.
We see this a bit with the s'Brydions, actually. As mentioned last chapter and in Ships, the s'Brydions may be allied with Lysaer, but it's for their own specific reasons. And they don't really hold a lot of truck with the rest of his melodrama.
...and that raises an interesting question suddenly. Is Tharrick clan rather than townfolk? Being from Alestron, I feel like that's a distinct possibility.
Anyway, it's pretty clear that Arithon's attempt not to win this guy over failed utterly, but that's always how it works.
Jinesse asks what he'll do. Tharrick reminds her of his promise. He explains the plan: he was going to rejoin the others at Ath's brotherhood and take everything he knows about Lysaer's plans. He wants Jinesse to come too.
'I can't.' The thread that held Jinesse to composure came unravelled, and her slender body spasmed to the jerk of stifled sobs. 'Fiark and Feylind are endangered. Lysaer insists he's concerned for them. But he cannot be everywhere and atrocities happen where armies march. I fear what might come if my twins were caught in the path of the bloodshed intended to bring down the Master of Shadow.'
The brimming, liquid tracks of her tears and the anguish in her voice caused Tharrick to shove upright despite his pain. He gathered her against his warm shoulder. 'I may have chosen to throw my lot in with Arithon. That doesn't mean I support the ruin of small children. Come away with me. I'll help see your young ones restored to you.'
'So he did tell you where he was bound,' Jinesse murmured. Her sigh of relief unreeled through a throat tight with weeping.
'No,' Tharrick whispered against the crown of her head. 'But as Ath is my witness, he must have told you.'
Hah.
But there's the comparison beat I was waiting for. Regardless of whether or not Lysaer's concern for the children is genuine, he can't be everywhere, and atrocities "happen". Arithon, admittedly, is not managing an army. But he does command a force that he CAN control. He CAN keep his men from beating up a prisoner (or at least impose consequences severe enough that it won't happen again.) He CAN make it clear that he will not tolerate the abuse of children by people who work under him.
--
The sneak peek section is "Interlinks"
1. The Koriani are trying to break the wards of Althain Tower. Sethvir is unconcerned because he's busy magically watching: "on Avenor's brick battlements, a desolate royal wife sheds lonely tears; two exuberant, blond-haired children laugh on a brigantine's decks in Southshire harbour, in Vastmark, wyverns ride the winds like blown rags, their reptilian eyes alert for strayed sheep, while below them, a laggard band of shepherds herd their flocks through the defiles to lowland pastures . . ."
Hey, I SEE you sneak some extra sneak peeks in there.
2. Erlien's clansmen seem to have gotten themselves a nice stampede of raided livestock. Go them.
3. I'll quote this one in entirety:
In Merior by the Sea, patient as he waits out a widow's tortured silence, Lysaer s'Ilessid pens a letter to his wife tender in assurance that war is not yet in the offing, until his watch officer interrupts with the bad news that Jinesse and the man Tharrick have evaded the guard on the cottage, and a search of the village has failed to find them...
Hah, fuck you, Lysaer.
And with that, the chapter ends.
no subject
He's also a half-way decent brother.