Wren gazed at him, so happy that she felt as if her entire body had turned to light.
He was so tall he had to stoop to enter.
“I thought I dreamed you!”
Connor chuckled, his changeable hazel eyes dark gray, like the sea under a storm front. “You’ve been asleep every morning I’ve come by to see you. The rest of my time,” his smile changed to a faint grimace, “has been spent at the Port Authority while the Admiral questioned pirates.”
Some of Wren’s joy leached away. “What do they say?”
“Most of them are lying.”
Wren gazed out the window at the ships heaving gently on the sea. “The Admiral questioned us, too, didn’t he?” On Connor’s nod, “I don’t remember what I told him.”
Connor gave her a wicked grin. “All you said was something about chickens. You mentioned them a couple of times.”
Wren groaned, her neck prickling with heat.
“Wren, no one expected you to make a lot of sense. It was just a formality, in case you could give us some clues about why Andreus was chasing you.”
“I don’t know why he is,” Wren said, and turned away from the window to face Connor. There he was, sitting on the single stool with his hands on his knees, but somehow he filled the entire room.
Again light flooded her being, leaving a kind of tingle in her hands, and an emptiness in her arms. She wanted to throw them around Connor and hug him there forever, now that she’d finally found him.
But she couldn’t. So she crossed her arms and hugged them tight against her middle instead. “Connor, it’s so good to see you, and it makes me so happy. But now that I have, I think I’d better go back home.”
Connor’s grin faded as his hands tightened on his knees. “What’s wrong?”
Wren sighed. “I thought about it. Lots. On the gig, I mean, when we were waiting for that last attack at night. I’m supposed to be a journeymage, and I thought I was so ready, so smart. But you should have seen my flubs during every one of those fights.”
“Fights?”
“ Messing up the simplest spells, ones I’ve known since I was a beginner! Tangling the others.”
“Wren, how many fights were you in?”
“Two different sets of ship battles. The chickens during the first one were the funny part, but it isn’t so funny when you consider how my mistakes nearly got us killed, or captured.”
“Ship battles, Wren? How many of us—”
“I’m not ready to be a journeymage. So I am not going to humiliate myself by going to the Summer Isles, or standing before the Mage Council and declaring some project that would be nice and easy just to hide how much I flub. I guess I need a few more years of being a student. And that’s all right. I enjoy classes, and learning.”
Connor lifted a hand, palm out. “Wren. What did you fail at? We arrived to find an entire pirate fleet in disarray, chasing a single gig.”
Wren shook her head. “I got that far because they had no mage, and we were about to lose. If Mistress Leila had been there, she would have sent them to the right-about with three elegant spells, and had time left for a leisurely midday meal.”
Connor sighed. Then he looked up. “I don’t want to argue. You know your own business best. But if Tyron thought you were ready, maybe you really are.”
Wren avoided his earnest gaze, which unsettled her. She busied herself repacking her knapsack as she said, “Tyron just wanted to be rid of me. To help me, I should add. Because I had an argument with . . . someone at home.” She sneaked a peek at him.
Connor’s expressive brows snapped together. “Argument? You? Who with?”
“Oh . . . no one in particular.”
She looked at all those masts spiking up on the bay, then down at her pack, and at her dusty sandals, anywhere but at Connor’s wide gaze, which really did make her middle feel . . . . odd.
Then he drew in a sharp breath. “You argued with Tyron?”
“No!”
“Teressa?”
That horrid prickly heat burned through her, making her squirm. “Yes,” she admitted. “Over that cactus-tongued slunch of a Hawk Rhiscarlan. Coming to court her. And she let him.”
It was Connor’s turn to gaze out the window, his high forehead puckered. “I see.”
Wren studied his profile. Usually she could discern his moods, but this time she couldn’t. She had never been able to, in fact, when the subject was Teressa.
The pause was just turning into a silence when Connor got to his feet. “I apologize. I came to get you. The royal messengers returned just before dawn, with the king’s response to the Admiral.”
Wren sighed. She’d have to brood about her own problems later. The present ones were more important. “Are they going to go after Andreus?”
“I’m not sure. The Admiral invited you to sit in at the meeting, if you wish.”
Wren shoved her feet into her sandals. “Then we’d better go! I want to hear what they’re going to do.”
They walked down the narrow, twisted stairs into a common room already loud with sea-going voices. The innkeeper gave Wren a nod, then returned to polishing his mugs as he listened to a conversation about storm sails, taking place in three languages.
As soon as they were out the door, Connor said, “Can you tell me what happened with Teressa?”
Wren had been thinking about it. “Yes,” she said, and her shoulders relaxed as if invisible weights had slid off. She’d always been able to talk to Connor, even if she didn’t understand his reactions. “I will. And it will feel good to be able to talk, instead of arguing with myself inside my head until my thoughts make as much sense as a gaggle of cackling geese!”
“Do geese cackle?” Connor asked, flashing a quick grin.
“Inside my head they do,” Wren stated firmly.
As they started up the road to the harbormaster’s, she launched into the story, backtracking to Fliss having to travel, and Wren’s having to teach the beginners, and Halfrid still being gone, before she finished up with that last uncomfortable conversation with Tess.
Connor remained silent the while. When Wren had finished, he was still silent for two steps, three, their feet crunching gravel, as birds rode the currents overhead.
Finally Wren said, “Go ahead and say it.”
“Say what?” he asked the sky.
“Whatever it is you don’t want to say because you think I don’t want to hear, which I probably don’t, but yes I do, because I know you know I . . .” Wren stopped, and snorted. “Wait. I did know where I was going with that, but, well, I forgot. I must be tireder than I thought.”
Connor chuckled, then said more seriously, “Have you considered that Teressa and Hawk have a lot more in common then you’ve been willing to admit?”
Wren hated hearing that. Anger flooded through her, making her feel hot and itchy. She struggled against a nasty retort, and after a few fuming breaths, “They have nothing in common. He’s a disgusting snake-faced, cactus-tongued villain, and she’s not.”
Connor said, “Do I have to count up all the things they have in common, including losing their parents and having to take over positions of responsibility far too young?”
Wren was going to reject that, too, but she couldn’t because it was true. Of course Hawk’s position of responsibility was just . . . was just . . . Wren sighed, remembering that Hawk had been in the process of rebuilding on his family’s ruined land. The many homeless young people he’d gathered and given jobs. Some of those jobs were more like being bullies in a military way, but they seemed to think differently.
As for Teressa . . . there she was in her beautiful palace, with lovely gowns, but she still wore a knife strapped to her leg, and she had a personal sword trainer, though no one knew but her favorite servants, and Wren.
Wren finally said grudgingly, “He could have been worse.”
“Then consider this. Is it possible he might be bettered by knowing Teressa?”
“I don??
?t know why I hate that, but I do.”
“Are you jealous?”
“What?”
He repeated calmly, “Are you jealous? I know I once was. But I also know that my feelings for her were pretty much in my own head. I admired a Teressa that didn’t exist. Wasn’t her fault. She is who she is.”
“You wanted her to be romantic. I know her.”
“You knew her. But people change. Are you against the change because you want her to be the Tess you were best friends with at the orphanage, or do you want her to be herself?”
Wren stopped in the road, hands on her hips. “Have you been saving all that up for months?”
He grinned. “I’ve been arguing with myself ever since the mountain fell. That’s partly why I had to get away.”
“Partly?” Wren asked.
But they’d reached a broad cobbled courtyard, and Connor stopped speaking. Wren looked around. It was an ordinary court, with low buildings on three sides. Central was the tiny jail. Wren remembered what Connor had told her—Andreus had actually been right here.
She shivered, then Connor led her past a pair of guards, their sharpened halberds at the ready, and swords at their sides. The short, stout one waggled his fingers at Connor in a surreptitious wave, and the tall one with the bumpy nose gave them a brief grin.
Wren and Connor entered a big room filled with people in military tunics, and two obvious royal messengers in fancy livery. At the other side of the room sat a grizzled man wearing an ordinary summer tunic .
Connor whispered, “Harbormaster,” as they sat down on the end of a bench.
Wren leaned forward, mentally rehearsing things she’d say if they asked any more about Andreus.
The meeting began. From the beginning it did not go as Wren expected. The Admiral described what the pirates had said under questioning, prefacing almost every sentence with words like “reported” and “if he can be believed.”
“So you see.” The Admiral leaned on the table, hands apart, face somber. “Due to the fact that the action took place outside of our border waters, and the fact that it did not concern any Okidainos, it is not considered a state matter. If the king were to send us to battle against these islands when there has been no trespass against Okidai, no threats, even, then we become the aggressors.” He added hastily, “In the eyes of others, of course. What it comes down to is, the king has decreed that we cannot attack other lands unless we can prove that attacks against us have been instigated there.”
The military people and the scribes all looked down, or out the window, or back at the Admiral. Nobody spoke.
Now I know why I was invited, Wren thought. The Admiral knew the king wouldn’t do anything about Andreus. He invited me to hear why.
And she knew enough about royal decrees to realize there was no hope, but still she said in her politest voice, “Pardon me, sir, but what about attacks against trade?”
The Admiral turned her way. “We can’t prove that this Black Hood has interfered with Okidaino trade, outside of three times in the past season, and all three of those we took care of at the time. North island trade, yes, they’ve interfered with quite a bit—and that becomes a matter for the islanders themselves to handle. This strange business about abducting mages cannot officially concern us, because none of our mages have been abducted.”
Once Wren might have jumped up in protest, sure she had right on her side. But the past year of yawning her way through Teressa’s court functions had taught her that royal courts, at least, all had different definitions of the word ‘right.’
She also had learned to listen for clues. This Admiral, a very stern-faced disciplinarian from what little she’d seen of him so far, did not just blurt out whatever came into his head. He’d thought out his words very carefully. Like that word ‘officially.’
Wren shifted her gaze to the two royal messengers at the back, who were listening closely. They seemed to be satisfied with what they heard: the navy would do nothing, because the king so decreed. They heard what they had come to hear—and that word ‘officially’ got nods of approval.
“Thank you, sir,” Captain Tebet said. Wren loved her squawking parrot voice.
“Please tender the king our thanks and our good wishes.” Connor bowed. He was using his prince manners, a sure sign something else was indeed going on.
So Wren stayed silent. She rose with the rest. Everyone who was supposed to bow bowed, and everyone else filed out. All according to the rules, orderly and quiet.
Wren followed Captain Tebet, peering past the older woman’s grizzled head at the harbor below, the docks, the big capital ships warping slowly in and out, with small skiffs and rowboats making their way around all the larger vessels. It was a hot day with almost no wind.
“A day,” Captain Tebet muttered, “to make and mend, and not to sail.”
Connor pointed toward the long, slant-roofed building across the courtyard. “That’s the barracks for the guards and the rest of us. Here, I’ll give you a tour, Wren. Introduce you to the rest of the inmates.”
Wren followed him through a low door into a wide, empty room with a big, battered table in the center. Windows glowed with indirect light from below the awning that the slanted roof formed. The sun here in the south was very hot and very bright, and no one wanted it blasting straight through the window glass.
On the table lay markers for two or three different gambling games, and on a tray there were several packs of hand-painted cards. This was the room Connor had talked about, where he’d spent his time listening for word about pirates, or Andreus, or mages, or something he could help fix.
Longface and Captain Tebet crossed to the battered doors at the other side of the room, then stopped. Connor and the Harbormaster watched through the windows as the last of the naval party disappeared down the switch-backed road to the harbor. Guards led two very fine horses up to the royal messengers, who mounted, and rode up the path to the royal city high on the mountain.
As soon as they were out of sight, the Harbormaster muttered something, then slipped out.
Connor spoke in Dock Talk for the benefit of Captain Tebet and Longface. “He’s going to get the prisoner.”
“Prisoner?” Wren repeated.
Connor said, “The king has a standard judgment for pirates, but this fellow, the Admiral said, was an exception, and the Harbormaster agreed. He’s just a boy, no older than you were when we all first met. He ran away from being a cabin boy in the Purban navy because there were too many rules and beatings, and he thought a pirate’s life would be freedom and good times.”
Wren remembered back in her orphanage days, weeding vegetables and thinking that being a pirate would be fun. Or at least play-acting a pirate would be fun. “So he joined up?”
“Yes. He didn’t think much of the pirate life once it came to attacking small traders and taking their goods, and he was already thinking of jumping ship when their captain decided that their pickings were too slim and to throw in their lot with Black Hood.”
Wren shuddered.
“I guess Andreus promised them plenty to come. Anyway, this fellow was in that attack. He’s terrified that Andreus will come after him, so we shifted him away from the jail with the others and hid him. He was especially afraid because he said he has some secret knowledge, but he won’t talk unless he’s protected by a real mage.”
The Harbormaster returned, leading a small, skinny boy with pale hair and eyes. His hands were scabbed from scrubbing and hard work, his face almost green with fear.
He looked at Wren. “Are you the magicker?” he asked in Dock Talk. Wren had gotten pretty good at that language during the long days in the gig.
Wren nodded.
The boy said in a low, fervent voice, “Can ye turn me into something else? Something that he won’t find? I’ll tell ye everything. Everything.”
Wren said, “I don’t dare transform you. The magic is so strong that he could probably put tracers on you.”
The
boy looked terrified. He looked at the Harbormaster. “But you promised,” he whispered.
Wren took his thin, rough hand. The boy instantly pulled away, his shoulders hunching, but she had his attention back. “I can remove any tracers on you. And as for getting away, a disguise, now that I can do. I’m really, really good at disguises. And we won’t have to depend on magic that can be traced.”
The boy sagged in relief. “A disguise! And I’ll go far inland, as far as I can. I never want to see the sea again. Ever. Sheep tending sounds good to me.”
Wren looked up. When the Harbormaster gave a nod, she said, “Done.”
The boy sat up, then sighed. “All right, where d’ye want to begin? I confess, I want to be away soon. Before he comes a-searchin’.”
“Now that the Okidaino mages know what he’s up to, they’re probably down there laying magic traps all over for him,” Connor said.
The boy just shook his head. “Nobody traps him.”
The Harbormaster said, “Never mind that. Begin with his citadel. What it looks like, and what protections he’s got.”
The boy asked for paper and chalk, which were brought. “The castle itself is on the highest mountain. One road leads up, and it has guard towers at every turning . . .”
Even though he couldn’t draw very well, a clear enough picture emerged—a daunting one.
“ . . . and on the lowest wall, between the start of the mountain road and the harbor, stand all the gargoyles. All the land between the walls and the harbor’s been paved over in stone, so the lookouts can see everything. And so can the gargoyles. They are mages, every one. All the ones he caught. They sit out there on the walls as a warning of what happens if anyone crosses him. And there are worse things. Oh, much worse. He calls that demonstrations.”
“Yuck,” Wren breathed.
“The harbor is patrolled day and night. The clearing has spy birds over it day and night. The castle, well, everyone says he has magical traps everywhere inside.”
“Did he say what those are?” Connor asked.
“No. Just gloats. But we know one, for he used it against one o’ his former allies who thought to try to overthrow him. Main road doesn’t just have guards, it also has traps. You get past the first gate, and terrible things happen to you if you don’t know all the secret signs an’ things. Nobody uses the main road, except if they know the signs.”