Chapter One
Captain Magus
The last thing Bashir remembered was the warm dark water closing over his head and the strange comfort that brought him. There was no noise of shouting and clashing metal here beneath the waves, and he felt the farther he could sink the more contented he would be. His body did not seem to be in agreement with his mind, however, and was struggling to rise again to the surface, when the sharp crack to his head rendered both his body and mind insensible.
Now he was vomiting onto a wooden floor while rough hands held him up by his shoulders. The last wave of retching cleared his ears of water, and he began to hear the voices of men around him. They were not speaking the familiar patois of his shipmates, but he could make out some of their Albraharan, and heard a rather piercing voice exclaiming in what he thought was a Xanthian dialect. Bashir could pick out the Albraharan words for “rat” and “drowned” and “worthless,” and the hands that supported him pushed him back till he was sprawled with his naked back against a coil of thick, scratchy rope. A steady trickle of fresh water sluiced down his face and he stuck out his tongue to catch a little of it: someone was squeezing a sponge over his head, then daubing his scalp with it, making him wince with pain and again come close to losing consciousness. A man’s hand took hold of his chin, wagging his head to keep him aware, and the man’s face came into focus: young, golden-bearded, grey-eyed, and stern.
“You alive. No fear,” the man said in the patois.
Alive, Bashir thought. A captive, though. And he wasn’t afraid, though he knew the fate of a captured corsair. But he knew quite clearly, though he didn’t know how, that what this man said could be trusted. No fear. And then again Bashir drifted into insensibility.
The next time he woke he was suspended in a swaying hammock in a ship’s hold and his head was aching as it had never ached before, and his throat was so parched he could barely make the moaning sounds that seemed necessary to his condition. This was worse than the aftermath of a night ashore in one of the freetowns of the Pyrcian Isles, and with none of the pleasurable memories Bashir could vaguely attach to those experiences. He reached tentative fingers to the top of his throbbing skull – someone had covered the most painful place with some sort of plaster. With an effort Bashir lifted his head a little and made a brief, bleary survey of the rest of his person. No apparent damage, and someone had also clothed him in a clean, open-fronted white shirt and pair of white trousers.
His barely audible moans and his movement had attracted the attention of a young man sitting on a nearby water butt, who came to him quickly, looked him over briefly, then turned and sprinted toward the light that spilled down the open hatch. Bashir couldn’t bring himself to turn his head, but he heard the sound of bare feet running, and the light was briefly shadowed, and he heard a voice calling “Captain – Captain!” in Albraharan.
In a few moments shadow filled the hatch again, and then the golden-bearded face hovered over him. The captain, then. Bashir felt the sense of trust and reassurance course through his mind, more strongly this time, as the captain leaned over him, supporting him with an arm behind his shoulders, and held a flask to his lips so that he could drink. It was some sort of liquor, syrupy and sweet, but with an aftertaste of bitterness. Bashir swallowed two sips, then the captain let him gently back down into the embrace of the hammock. The captain’s grey eyes continued to regard him, capturing his gaze and holding it. Almost as clearly as words Bashir perceived the promise again. No fear. He nodded, and the captain smiled slightly and patted his shoulder firmly. “Sleep,” he said simply, then turned and spoke quietly to the sailor who had fetched him, and before their conference was concluded, Bashir was lost in a sweet and natural sleep.
“We will make port tomorrow, sir, at this rate.” Captain Maarinen’s first officer, Rabin, young cousin of Fareesh, master of the trading fleet, was both pleased and relieved. The passage through the arms of the Terian archipelago always worried him a little. It was nearly the last real hotbed of corsairs on the southern Albrahar-Xanthia trade route – its notorious doldrums and fogs gave any pirate willing to put his back to rowing fairly easy access to becalmed merchant ships. Most captains chose the less direct northerly route to Xanthia. But the ports where the trade in spices and jewels was most profitable were in the southern provinces, and Captain Maarinen had made both his fortune and his reputation by braving the dangers of the archipelago to give Fareesh the briskest and most frequent access to those profits. Rabin was not lacking in courage, and by now Captain Maarinen had become notorious among the corsairs, and generally avoided by them, so that the first officer could usually keep his nerves from troubling him. The attack three nights ago had been as much a surprise as Captain Shar-li undoubtedly wished it to be – but it had surprised the pirate and his boarding party as much as it had surprised the crew of The Marten, once they became aware of whose vessel they were attacking.
The thick fog had obscured the approaching boats, but it had also hidden The Marten’s identity until it was too late and she had already been boarded. Captain Maarinen’s crew was always composed of men who were fighters as well as sailors – many were former corsairs themselves, in fact – and it had been a bloody business, with the single boat of pirates who escaped no doubt considering themselves lucky to have done so. That young fellow the captain had plucked from the waters might consider himself doubly lucky. If he had not fallen overboard he might as easily have been separated from his head by the captain’s saber, as have it tended with those strange herbal remedies Maarinen was so devoted to. And now he had an opportunity to begin his life anew, if he had the wits to take advantage of it.
“How is the captive?” Of course the captain would know what Rabin was thinking.
“He is moving about and eating, and attempting to converse. He knows a little Albraharan, and it improves almost as quickly as his wound. He seems intelligent.”
“I believe it is time for our interview.” Timu Maarinen took up his black jacket from where he had flung it across the bow rail and shrugged it on over his loose white shirt. The silver locket around his neck swung out with the motion, and he tucked it back within the breast of the shirt before reaching behind his head to tighten the black ribbon on his long blond pigtail. The jacket, with its Vaaselian tailoring, was his only visible mark of authority, other than the Albraharan saber he wore in his belt and his tall boots of black leather. In all other respects he dressed as a common Albraharan seaman, in plain white cotton. There was no mistaking him for an Albraharan, however; though his skin was bronzed by the sun, the same sun had made his hair fair to near whiteness in his years in Fareesh’s service. A few of the crew were Ravellan, some nearly as fair as the captain, but he was instantly recognizable. Both his nearly delicate northern features and the calm internal authority that showed in every movement of his body and every expression of his face marked him as the well-known Captain Magus.
No one called him that to his face, but he knew of it, of course, and accepted it as a mark of both respect and affection. As a common seaman, five years before, he had suffered more than a little persecution for his chastity, until his family name became known. Then the gossip that had made its way south from Vaaseli had begun to circulate, and there had been challenges to his mind-powers from some, and overtures to his friendship from others. When Master Fareesh became aware that Lord Timu Maarinen was serving on one of his merchant ships he had been summoned to Marda, to Fareesh’s mansion – a finer palace, in fact, than the Vaaselian king’s palace in Essin. Timu’s seamanship and skills as a navigator were already established, and Fareesh insisted that his breeding demanded a position as an officer. His courage and skill as a fighter, and his shrewdness as a trader – aided no doubt by his mind-powers – soon saw him advance to captain. When the best of the Albraharan shipyards had produced a new, swift vessel to rival the best in the Ravellan fleet of Abertus Skipman, it was given to Captain Maarinen’s command, to be Fareesh’s flagship, and Timu named her The Marten. Fareesh asked him what a marten might be. “It is a small, fierce animal of my homeland,” Timu told him, “whose beautiful black fur is highly prized, and whose movements are quick, and also beautiful.”
“A good name for your vessel then,” Fareesh had replied, though he thought there was something more to Lord Maarinen’s choice, from the look in his eye and the catch in his voice. Perhaps it was homesickness, or nostalgia.
Chastity was not the only form of modesty Captain Maarinen exhibited, and his ability to exercise authority without arrogance and accept admiration without vanity earned him the willing devotion of his crew. As he refrained from using his mind-powers for his own advantage, even as an aid to his authority, they were not resented. Every crewman knew that his own prosperity owed a great deal to the captain’s abilities, put in the service of Fareesh’s interests. When they learned that their commander had been legally named as Fareesh’s full partner they rejoiced for him, and for themselves. A harmless nickname did nothing to undermine their appreciation – indeed it was an expression of it.
But when Bashir was brought before him he was Captain Maarinen. The captain’s cabin in the stern of The Marten was as simply furnished as Albraharan taste permitted, and marked by the airiness and lightness favored by that taste. There was an intricately woven rug on the floor, but its pattern was entirely geometric, and the white painted woodwork was only moderately fretted. The morning sun poured through the open windows, and when Rabin brought in the captive Timu was standing in the strong light so that around his fair head an aura seemed to glow. Rabin didn’t think for a minute that the Captain posed that way on purpose, but the effect on the rescued corsair was obvious. He fell to his knees and prostrated himself, and Captain Maarinen frowned and shook his head and signaled Rabin to make the fellow get up.
“Stand. Stand like a man,” the captain said. “You speak some Albraharan?”
“Small, Lord,” the captive muttered, his dark head still bowed and his eyes on the space on the floor in front of the captain’s boots.
Timu stepped forward, and Rabin kept his hand on the corsair’s arm, holding him up and preventing him from cringing. “Look at me.”
The captive raised his chin a little and looked up from beneath brows peaked with worry. Rabin knew the captain was withholding his thoughts, shielding them and restraining them. He had some mind-power of his own, and knew how open Captain Maarinen was with his mind, as a rule. If he wished the captive to perceive the good will he felt for him the shielding would not be necessary. The captain was testing him with this neutrality to see if he’d be met with fear or defiance.
“How old are you?” The fellow didn’t answer, looked puzzled. “How many years? How many years have you?”
“I – I not know, Lord.”
Timu shook his head and Rabin felt the shielding subsiding. “Fifteen, sixteen – no more I imagine. How long were you with Shar-li? Years? Moons?”
“Nine moons, Lord.” This the boy understood, and he began to be eager to answer. “Last rain-time, I was – took from village.” Now he had the courage to look Captain Maarinen in the eye. “I no corsair. I kill no one, rob no one. I row, I cook, I clean Shar-li’s boots. . .” He ducked his head once, and looked up again, with hope in his eyes this time.
“I cook for you? I clean?”
The captain smiled, and Rabin felt he could relax, and stop bolstering the prisoner. The boy was standing quite straight and easy on his own now, with no sign of trembling, though still in a most humble attitude.
“Your name?” Timu asked.
“Bashir, Lord.”
“You must call me Captain, as you are now crew. Do you understand me?”
The boy ducked his head again in assent.
“I will take you as my servant, Bashir – to cook and clean as you say – and you must practice your Albraharan. Master Rabin will help you, so you will learn to speak well. Do you understand?”
The boy looked as though he got the gist of it, at any rate. Rabin felt the captain’s thought now, as he released his mind from its restraint entirely. “He is a good boy, and a quick one – keep him by your side until we make port, and help him. I will be grateful.” Like everything Captain Maarinen asked, Rabin took it as a command, but felt it as a request, and believed in the gratitude.
