"I am sure you can be forgiven. We have never been appropriately introduced, my lord, and you will certainly be unfamiliar with this face, whichalthough properly mineis not the one which you encountered previously. You knew me as Celandine Marten, handmaiden to the Lady Mathilda, Princess of Ardrone."

Shocked, he cocked his head, searching his memory. And then he had it: the woman who had come to the aid of Saker Rampion during the witan's court case. She'd spoken up for him. A grey mouse of a woman, demurely dressed, if he remembered correctly. Not this blood-spattered creature clad in a seaman's culottes and shirt, nor yet a woman with a head of rich dark hair, blue eyes and a face that spoke of strength and determination, not timidity.

Astonishment robbed him of speech. Was his memory really so poor? And if she was Celandine Marten, what the soused herrings was she doing here?

"Madam," he managed finally, "I cannot conceive of any scenario that would adequately explain the words you just voiced. But I have to admit that there is no way I shall ever allow you to disembark from this vessel before I have heard one!" He bowed with an elaborate flourish. "Do you think you could possibly halt the distressingly noisy emanations from that scrap of humanity in your arms long enough for me to hear such a tale?"

She smiled slightly and, while he watched, her face changed. One moment, she was a grubby, windswept woman of striking appearance; the next she was an unremarkable mousey creature, as undistinguished as a servant one passed by without noticing.

Oh, beggar me witless. A glamour. He hadn't come across anyone with a glamour since... oh, since he was a child of ten. There'd been an old man on his uncle's estate who'd once been a spy for the old King.

"Ah. Ah, yes, I do remember you," he said dryly. "I commend you: a picture always tells the story better than words. I still cannot imagine what brings you here, although I'm positive it must be a fascinating account. But please, what can we do to silence the child long enough to have such a conversation?"

Her glamour lapsed, and she reverted to her more striking appearance. He wondered if that was her true mien; she was certainly more attractive that way.

She said with a shrug, "I suspect the babe will only quieten when I feed her." Placing the child against her shoulder, she knelt to rummage around with her free hand in the bundle of clothing that had been deposited on the deck, and emerged a moment later with what looked like a tiny pottery teapot. A baby feeder, he assumed. She rocked the child, but it continued to wail.

"You are full of surprises, Mistress Marten. Is the child yours?"

"No. And my real name is Sorrel Redwing."

"Should I know it?"

"Probably not, unless you happened to hear of the unimportant murder of a country landsman by his wife a year or two ago."

"Ah." Once again, she had left him floundering for words. The name was unknown to him, but the story sounded even more fas cinating. "Ah. Well. Yet another intriguing tale to be told one day, but not now, I feel. Come below; this sunshine is not a place for a baby's soft skin."

"Not yet, my lord. There is something I must tell you first."

Her tone halted him as effectively as a hold on his arm. He could read it as clearly as words on a page. She was terrified, but not for herself. Nor for the baby either. "Someone is in trouble on Spice Winds, I suppose," he said. Then he groaned. "Don't tell me it's Saker Rampion."

It was her turn to be shocked.

"How... how very astute of you, Lord Juster. Most of that tale can wait. Except you should know that Saker is, or was up to last night, on board Spice Winds. I have every reason to believe he may be in great danger."

Juster winced. "That man courts disaster like a wind-rover courts a breeze."

"Perhaps. Although I seem to remember a time when it was you who was closer to disaster then he."

The smile she gave contained not a little mockery, the minx.

Just then, the tar who cared for the goats arrived with a mug of milk, so he said, "Allow me to escort you to my cabin, Mistress Redwing, where you can bribe that child into blessed silence and I can hear myself think while you tell your story."

"You are a man of infinite good sense, my lord. I hope I can encourage you to extricate the witan from his present predicament. Although," she added as they descended the companionway, "he is a resourceful man, with a habit of extricating himself. Still, I'm sure he'd appreciate your assistance."

Her effrontery amused him. Dressed as she was, with the blood still unexplained, and with her station in life apparently lowly, she addressed him as if she was an equal. He was beginning to like Sorrel Redwing. A lot.

She seated herself on his bed under the stern windows and began feeding the baby from the tiny pot with practised ease. Her fearless calm fascinated him. She treated him with all the poise of an aristocratic dowager, reminding him of his formidable grandmother. He was none too sure who would win a confrontation in the unlikely event of such a meeting.

"As much as I would like to know the full story on what brings you and Saker here," he began, "I think perhaps we had better deal with first things first. What danger is Saker in?"

"The captain of Spice Winds sent me off in that boat this morning with several sailors who had instructions to get rid of me in whatever fashion they saw fit. I don't know what happened to Saker, but I do know that if Captain Lustgrader was prepared to murder me, he would be more than prepared to kill Saker."

He digested that with growing wonder. Several sailors? And where, pray, were they now?

Deciding this was not the time to enquire, he asked instead, "When you left the ship, where was Saker?"

"In the brig, I believe."

"Mistress, I don't know that I can help. I'm a privateer, and if I were to go over to the Lowmian fleet they might well point a cannon at my boat, and a musket at my head. They certainly wouldn't answer any questions. And any enquiry by me or my crew could make things worse for Saker, not better."

"We have a lascar friend on board. Name of Ardhi. He will help Saker if he can. He was on watch last night, so he was probably sleeping this morning and missed what happened to us. Perhaps if you could talk to him..."

He stared at her, and resisted an almost overwhelming desire to hear every detail of just how an Ardronese witan had ended up on a Lowmian ship heading for the Spicerie. "Wait here," he said. "Finish feeding that child. I'll do what I can."

Leaving the cabin, he sought out his first mate and found him up on the deck staring at the Lowmian fleet through a spyglass. "Finch," he asked, "can you get another bumboat over at Spice Winds with our spies on board? I want them to find out what's going on over there. I'm interested in a tall fellow, dark hair, dark eyes, slim and tough, handsome sod. Might be in trouble, and in need of rescue. Come to think of it, you know him: Saker Rampion."

"The witan who rescued you from falling on to the deck headfirst from the rigging?"

"The very same."

"Might be difficult getting a bumboat close, cap'n. Seems Spice Winds chased them all off earlier on. The lookout in the crow's nest just told us it looked as if they were getting ready to keel-rake someone." He indicated the spyglass. "Been trying to make sense of what they're up to meself."

"Scupper the scuts!" Saker, I'll wager that's you they intend to send to scrape barnacles off the ship's bottom. What the blistering pox did you do this time? Fuck the captain's daughter? "What d'you reckon you're seeing?"

"Can't really make it out. Summat's going on, for sure. There's a weird hornswaggling lot o' birds around the ship, for a start." He sighed. "Va-damned horror, keel-raking; makes a bloodied mess of a man. Can rip his pizzle off, for starters. Maybe the blood and flesh in the water is what's attracting them birds."

Fuck. "Get the sloop in the water, Finch. And make it quick."

"Cap'n-"

"No. Don't say it, Finch. I know. But that man saved my neck once, so if I can rescue his pizzle-! Tell Surgeon Barklee he's coming with us."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"Oh, and get the bath and hot water down there into my cabin, towels, and that chest of women's clothing? Get it brought in too."

Once Finch and Cranald had everything in hand, he returned to Sorrel Redwing. "My cabin is yours, mistress, for the moment. I would strongly advise a bath and some clean clothes. Choose what you will from the selection I have on board. In the meantime, I will see to the health of this wormhole-skulled witan."

Without waiting for her reaction, he left the cabin, already considering how best to save a man who might just have been keel-raked.

20.

Keel-raked

Saker knew that Ardhi, standing near the end of the spar, could dive or jump straight into the sea. Quickly he looked away, hoping no one else noticed the lascar's presence up there. Instead he concentrated on the birds, bringing them lower and closer. Confused and unsettled, they battled against the alien nature of their subjugation to him. Worse, as a flock of mixed species, they squabbled among themselves.

Another glance around the deck told him the rope under the keel was now in place. He turned to the sailor still clutching his arm. "How does this keel-raking work?" he asked, sounding much calmer than he felt. With his hands tied behind his back like this, there was no easy way they could pull him under the ship.

It was the bo'sun who answered, and he spoke to the sailor, not him. "Untie his wrists and bind them in front, using that." He was pointing at the end of the rope hanging over the bulwark; the rest of it snaked into the sea and under the ship. "Quickly now. Oh, and take off his shirt first."

Bile surged into his throat at the thought of his bare skin scraped over barnacles. Va save me. His fear made him merciless, and he imposed his will on the birds, yanking them onto a steep, downwards trajectory. They screamed their anger at the coercion, but came anyway, exuding a contradictory eagerness to please.

I hate this, he thought.

The sailor began to untie his wrists. A small porthole of opportunity was opening... He gathered himself for the sliver of time that was his chance.

"Take care!" the bo'sun snapped at the sailor. He took a fistful of Saker's hair and wrenched his head down to his knees. "We don't want him jumping overboard."

He swore, but wasted no effort in struggling. He turned his attention to the largest bird instead, pictured the bo'sun's bald head, and channelled the avian anger towards it. There was a rush of wings, strong beats cleaving the air, a screech and men shouting their warnings. His hands were free. The hold on his hair was gone. Blood dribbled down the side of the bo'sun's face as he clutched his head in disbelief. Saker lunged for the ship's bulwarks.

And someone tripped him as he flung himself forward. Accidental or deliberate, he didn't know, but the result was the same. He fell hard, face-down, on the deck. Someone kneed him in the back to pin him there.

Voices yelled, an appalled chorus around him.

"What the sweet cankers is going on?"

"Hang me for a haggard! What the fobbing pox are the birds doing?"

"I'll be beggared! They're everywhere!"

Saker focused. Slashing beaks, clawing talons, powered wings tilting across the deck like windmill blades. Cry, he commanded. Shriek! Screech! Scratch! Lacerate!

The pressure on his back disappeared and he scrambled to his feet.

Men scattered, but their fear swirled around him, interwoven with the fury of the birds. Feathers floated in the air. Above it all, he heard Lustgrader shouting orders, roaring for someone to tie the factor up, to stop the leery lubber of a quill-sharpener. "It's him doing this; it's all his fault, the factor; seize the fobbing factor!"

Saker dived for the bulwarks once more, and was tackled again. It was the bo'sun, his head still streaming blood as he shouldered Saker to the deck. Two sailors flung themselves into the fray, weighing him down with their bodies. He struggled, called to the birds. Someone snatched up the keel-rake rope and tied his hands in front of him. The birds came, ripping at the men, but other sailors beat them back with belaying pins.

He saw bloodied feathers, crippled wings, broken beaks; felt their dying, their terror, their pain. His mind screamed at them, Fly!

And those that could lifted into the sky to safety. Sickened at the carnage around him, at the pain and the confusion and terror echoing in his skull, none of it his, he had to force himself to rationality. He looked down at his pinioned hands, saw the rope snake away from his wrists, over the port bulwark and into the sea. He knew without looking that the other end was somewhere on the deck.

There would be no going back once it was tied to his feet.

He struggled to rise, but one of the sailors still pinned him down. Glancing sideways, he saw two pelicans lumbering about on the deck in a panic, unable to take off again from such a confined space. A sailor holding a belaying pin raised his arm, his lips pulled into a grimace as he prepared to shatter the skull of one of them.

"No!" Saker heaved away the seaman sprawled across him, and sat up calling the two pelicans towards him. They obeyed, running, wings spread to beat the air in ineffectual attempts at flight. Va above, they were huge. Ungainly, with beaks as long and as broad as barbarian broadswords, and swinging throat pouches as large as a fat man's beer gut... The belaying pin missed its target.

A massive beak stabbed at the sailor trying to push Saker back down to the deck. The man back-pedalled away, aghast. Saker picked the bird up, surprised to find out how light it was, and tossed it bodily over the side of the ship. It momentarily laboured to fly, then caught the wind and was gone. The bo'sun charged at Saker, just as the second pelican lumbered up, its beak opening like a gaping vat lid. They collided, the bo'sun tripped and the bird was bowled over.

Saker grabbed it and hugged it to his chest, soothing it with his thoughts. He flung himself over the bulwarks with the bird in his arms, but released it in mid-air as they fell. The pelican opened its wings in time to skim the surface of the sea, paddling furiously at the waves with its webbed feet until it lifted into the air. Saker plunged past it into the water, the rope attached to his hands uncoiling behind him.

Surfacing again, he bent his head to the knots on his bonds, attacking them with his teeth. He had to loose them before it occurred to someone to haul him in.

His terror mounted as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the slack of the rope begin to disappear into the depths. Someone was already hauling on it from the other side of the ship.

Pickle it, Ardhi, where are you?

Someoneor somethingsplashed into the water beside him and disappeared beneath him, only to pop up a moment later a few paces away.

Ah. Think of the reeky fellow, and he appears. He had the kris clamped in his teeth.

Saker held out his hands. "Quick!"

Too late. A sudden jerk on the rope yanked him sideways and pulled his face under the water.

He twisted and thrust himself up, spluttering, gasping for air. Ardhi was stroking towards him, fast. Saker just had time to take another gulping breath, and then he was wrenched away, hands first, under the water. Towards the ship.

Too fobbing fast, Va help me.

His last glimpse was of Ardhi reaching out to grasp himand missing.

Helpless, his arms stretched forward, head under the surface, he was dragged down. And down.

How can they pull me so fast? Ardhi will never be able to catch up! Logic, as chill as ice, told him they'd done the sensible thing and put the rope through a pulley and were hauling on it, a number of them. Beggar them, those bilge-crawling tars.

The hull loomed over his head, and he slammed into it, just getting a shoulder up in time to save his skull from taking the brunt.

The rope dipped further down. He flipped over to protect his face and stomach, allowing his back to be scraped along the hull. No bar nacles, thank Va. Yet. He was going to be ripped to pieces any time now.

Thoughts scrambled through his mind, each a quicksilvered flash of knowledge layered on top of the last.

He didn't have enough air.

If he hit his head on the underside of Spice Winds, he could be knocked unconscious.

The only thing that could save him now would be something happening on the deck... like... birds disrupting the keel-raking.

Blood, feathers, crippled wings. More dying terns and shearwaters and petrels, sacrificed for him, I am a Shenat witan. I dedicated myself to the way of the Oak.

With a deliberate, brutal briskness, he made his decision to accept whatever happened. No more deaths, not even of birds.

If I die, I die.

Silver light, a sinuous gliding shape, flashed in front of him. He thought it must be a sea snake, bumping into the rope. But then his forward momentum ceased. The rope tying his wrists was no longer attached to anything.