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Zevran leaned forward in the bow, gripping the polished brass railing and shaking the salt spray out of his eyes. He grinned. Maker, this was…marvelous, even if the white-capped waves that surged up and over the railing left him drenched.
"Arainai," Master Nylos called out behind him. "Get back here."
Zevran scrambled back over the deck roofing the small cabin to stand beside his master. Those dark eyes flicked over to him, then back to the full-bellied sail.
"You were taught how to swim?"
Zevran's grin faded. "Yes, master." If being tossed into deep water while some master watches you thrashing around can be called teaching. Fortunately, Amia had sometimes taken the children out to collect clams and mussels for the whorehouse kitchen. A lesson or two on swimming had always crept into those excursions, so he'd known how to stay afloat. Some of the other apprentices…hadn't.
Master Nylos pointed eastward, to a large island crowned with a high bluff. "You see that island? Almost in the center of the mouth of the bay?"
Zevran squinted against the sun throwing sharp spears of light off the waves while the wind whipped strands of hair around his face. "Yes, master."
"Name it."
The young elf gulped and twisted around, scanning the bay behind him as he shifted his weight to keep his balance as the boat sliced through the choppy water. They were still well inside the bay, since he could see the north-western edge of Antiva City, hazy blue with distance.
"You did examine that collection of charts I left on your desk?"
"Yes, master. I…I'm just looking for a point of reference." Not really a lie, but Maker, there were a dozen islands that lay within the wide mouth of the bay. Even if he had thought to memorize all of their names, he didn't know how to transfer what he'd seen on the maps to what lay before and around him. Not that a master tolerated any excuse for a wrong answer.
"I'm waiting, Arainai."
A familiar ache that had never quite left him when he'd been under Master Jepheth's authority settled anew in his gut.
"I…I'm not sure, Master." He braced himself for the backhanded blow at which every master excelled.
"You don't know how to read a chart, do you?"
"No, master."
His gaze focused on the rising and falling deck, Zevran couldn't see Master Nylos' expression. But the soft sound the master made sounded suspiciously like a snort…of disapproval. Zevran risked a quick glance, and caught a narrow-eyed frown just before the master's face smoothed over. His gut tightened. He knew that look.
"I assume you were taught how to read a map."
"Yes, master."
Master Nylos turned the wheel hard to the right, and the wind spilled out of the sail. The small boat drifted, bobbing in the rough water. In the far right side of the bay, there was little traffic, except for the occasional pleasure-craft like this one.
The master released the anchor rope, then stepped back and studied his young apprentice while Zevran wondered what punishment would be meted out. Swimming back to shore wasn't outside the realm of possibility.
"In the simplest terms, a chart is just a map of the water so you can find your way across a bay or down a river without running aground." A smile thin as the edge of a dagger flicked across Master Nylos' face. "Or, avoiding guard posts stationed along a river bank."
The master stepped past him and flipped opened a small chest bolted to the deck. Relieved and puzzled, Zevran watched as he rummaged through it, then turned and tossed him a thick wad of silk.
"Unfold it."
Zevran shook it out. "It's a map."
Master Nylos sighed. "A chart, Arainai. It's called a chart." He crouched down on the deck, then motioned for Zevran to join him.
"Spread it out on the deck."
A guide to Antiva Harbor lay before them. Concentric irregular lines of black outlined shades of blue that, except for scattered areas, deepened from a pale wash of blue along the shoreline to the sapphire of dusk as one moved towards the center of the bay. Numbers woven into the map next to the black lines increased as the blue color darkened. The names of the islands woven into the map in elegant letters shimmered in the sun.
"It's beautiful," Zevran said, fingering the thick, soft fabric.
Master Nylos glanced up and smiled. "Yes, it is. Elegance and practicality is an uncommon mix. Treasure it when you find it." He pointed to one of the numbers near the center of the map. "Why do the numbers increase?"
Zevran frowned in thought, then smiled. "They indicate depth." He ran his finger across the map. "It gets deeper as you move toward the center of the harbor. So I assume the darker the color, the deeper the water."
"Very good."
Zevran felt warmth gather in his belly at the unexpected praise.
"Now, why is the chart made of silk?"
"Ah, I assume, master, for the same reason some maps are. Easier to hide and carry, and the markings won't run or blur in bad weather."
"Yes, unfortunately, being made of silk also renders it useless for plotting a course, but there are paper ones available for that."
Master Nylos turned, balanced on the balls of his feet, and pointed at the island he'd asked Zevran to name earlier. "The island is called The Serpent's Tail." On the chart, he traced the long chain of islands curving down from the northeast to the southwest like an undulating snake. His fingertip came to rest above the island he'd just named. "Most of these islands are little more than sandbars. Yet possession of this chain has passed back and forth between the three most powerful merchant houses for the last four hundred years." He looked up and smiled, thin and sharp. "House Rubio is the current owner. They obtained it from House Pena twenty-two years ago, who in turn claimed it from…" He motioned to Zevran.
"House Alarcon, which had it for almost a hundred-and-twenty years after they stole it from House Rubio who…" He stopped when Master Nylos held up his hand.
"And they all fight over it because?"
A scavenger gull called out as it passed over the single mast of the small boat.
"The tariff houses are located on Serpent's Tail. Who ever controls those controls the gold that flows into the city from shipping imports."
"Quite an incentive to take out a contract, wouldn't you say?"
Zevran's eyes widened. "You've bid a contract on House Rubio, Master?"
He grimaced as soon as the words left his mouth. An apprentice did not ask questions about a master's business. Rule number one twenty-seven, or something, wasn't it? But Master Nylos only chuckled.
"No contract has been posted…yet. But rumors float among the alehouses and in the brothels that House Alarcon grows restless over House Rubio's 'ownership'. They've always regarded those islands as exclusively theirs. It's only a matter of time." He rose and motioned towards the anchor line. "Now, go pull up the anchor. You're going to learn sailing. Not all contracts are in Antiva City."
Nylos glanced back when he topped the rise of the small, sandy hill. The wind tugged at his clothes, pushing a strand of dark hair across his face. He tucked it back behind a pointed ear and hitched the leather strap of his pack higher up on his shoulder.
Zevran wandered down the beach from the boat, pulled up high onto the shore, and collected driftwood. Nylos had instructed him to collect enough to keep a small fire going through the night. After that, he was to study the book on navigation now tucked inside his shirt.
The Crow master turned and glided down the shallow slope on the far side of the crest before his apprentice could catch him watching.
"Jepheth, you're a narrow-minded bigot and a fool three times over," he muttered, now that he was well out of ear-shot of his apprentice. The boy needed a firm hand, yes, but also guidelines that didn't shift under a sadist's whims. If he had violated boundaries, it had been because Jepheth had kept changing them. You didn't punish without a reason, and you rewarded effort and success in the acquisition of skills and knowledge.
Nylos' stride lengthened as he headed onto a well-known path that wound through a large grove of beach willows. In the middle of a salt-water bay, this small island boasted a fresh-water spring that bubbled up sweet and cold in the middle of that grove. By the time he reached the edge of the small pond the spring fed, his temper had settled.
He sank down onto a flat rock beside the pond, then let the strap slide off his shoulder. Bright red and blue song-birds flitted through the branches while the sun painted slender limbed tree shadows on the mossy ground and across the still water. Here, in this serene place, he could almost forget the Crows existed. Almost.
He stretched out a leg and thought about the current game of politics playing itself out in the backrooms of the expensive brothels and wine houses the wealthy nobles favored. Then he shrugged and pushed those thoughts aside. Time enough to deal with that when they returned.
He opened the leather pouch and retrieved a small bundle wrapped in a square of soft black linen. He fingered the edge of the cloth and then gently pulled its edges apart. In the center of the cloth lay a pair of soft deerskin gloves lined with rabbit fur. Made for a slender hand with long, tapered fingers, the kind of hand Zevran had. Even in the shade the fine silk embroidery shimmered. Why Jepheth hadn't burned them in front of the boy, the Maker alone knew. Enraged over being slammed in the stones by his wayward apprentice, he'd probably forgotten about them, and they'd been dumped with the day's trash. Lying on top of the heap, they'd been easy to retrieve.
Nylos fingered the soft leather. He recognized the graceful loops and whirls of green and gold thread as Dalish design, even if he didn't know their meaning. Elegance and practicality, he thought with a smile. The elaborate design and small, neat stitches spoke of careful craftsmanship, the kind that went into a gift.
Apprentices were not allowed anything beyond what a master deigned to give them. And no master, especially one like Jepheth, would make a gift like this. So Zevran had had them since his purchase from the whorehouse.
"Ah, you're a clever one," Nylos murmured, thinking of how the boy had hidden these from both his masters and fellow apprentices for so many years.
He measured a glove against his hand - small, but not small enough for a child. These had been made for a woman's hand. He could guess the meaning of that.
"Clever, and foolish, Zevran Arainai. Crows have no family, haven't you yet learned that?"
He laid the glove back beside its mate. He should burn them. Not in front of Zevran, of course. Nylos had no stomach for the casual cruelty in which Jepheth delighted. But he couldn't quite bring himself to cast them into a fire. They'd survived eight years in the Crows. That deserved some kind of memorial.
He rose, laying the gloves and his pouch to one side, before digging away some of the loose earth from around the edge of the stone he'd been sitting on. When he'd cleared a space large enough to slip his hands under, he spread his legs for balance, gripped hard and heaved it over. The sandy soil underneath was cool and not as tightly packed as he'd thought. He scooped out a deep hollow, and then re-wrapped the gloves in the black linen before laying them in the earth.
He filled in the hole, stamped down the soil, and heaved the rock back over it. He probably should say something, but the Crows had no funeral rites. A hurried, un-marked grave was the best one could hope for.
"Maker keep you safe," he whispered to the unknown woman, though she'd followed other gods. He picked up his pouch by the strap, and retrieved the large water flasks Zevran had seen him tuck inside. After filling the flasks, then replacing them in the pouch, he returned to the beach.
Next to a sizeable pile of driftwood, Zevran had even hauled a small log to the makeshift campsite. He sat on it, barefoot, the bottom of his pants rolled up to his knees and the navigation book open on his lap. His frown deepened as he flipped through the pages.
"Maker, how does anyone remember all the steps for finding longitude? By the time you figure out where you're supposed to be, you'd be someplace else," he muttered as Nylos eased up. Amber eyes flicked up in his direction when Nylos' shadow edged into his peripheral vision, and the young elf bounded to his feet, and bowed, his cheeks slightly flushed. It was clear to Nylos that his apprentice expected to be punished for a 'flippant tongue,' and for the implied criticism in his words of the master's choice of training.
"You learn it the same way the navigator wrote it, one step at a time. Or don't you like a challenge, Arainai?"
"I…that is… It's just that math and I have never been good friends."
Nylos set the pack next to the wood. "Then it's time you became better acquainted, isn't it?"
Zevran grimaced. "Yes, master."
Despite his protests, he did well on the beginning exercises, so Nylos surmised that his apprentice just didn't care for calculations.
Like a fat gold sovereign slowly sliding out of a miser's fingers, the sun eased down toward evening. When it sat just above the horizon, Nylos directed Zevran to start a fire and prepare dinner. Though he knew Malusa had recently started giving him some instruction on cooking, Nylos didn't expect much. As long as it wasn't burnt beyond recognition, he'd be satisfied.
While it cooked high up on the beach, Nylos drifted towards the shoreline and let the warm waves lap over his feet. Dusk, the time of shadows, had always been his favorite time of day. The moon, almost full, hung low in a clear sky. It would be a good night to practice taking star sightings.
The wind shifted, and the scent of garlic and hot peppers drifted across his nose. Subtler scents lay underneath those, coriander, oregano, and rare saffron. He recognized Malusa's fish chowder. Nylos smiled and returned to the small fire, where Zevran sat on the log, stirring the contents of a small black pot suspended over the campfire.
He started to rise, then sank back, looking wary and puzzled when Nylos motioned him back down.
"I see Malusa's cooking lessons are already settling in."
Zevran grinned. "Yes, master. She complained that since I eat so much, I needed to learn." He hit the stirring spoon on the side of the pot before replacing the lid. "The woman is a marvel in the kitchen. Where ever did you find her?"
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, he paled. He certainly hadn't been rude or even remotely 'flippant,' but Jepheth didn't tolerate words that even hinted at familiarity, let alone ones that implied an apprentice was commenting on his judgment.
Nylos pulled a small flask of brandy from the leather pouch before answering. "So long as you show respect, ask me whatever you wish. However, unlike you, I am not obligated to answer."
The lines of tension in Zevran's body eased. "Yes, master." Then after a few moments, he said, very carefully, "You're not going to tell me, master, are you?"
Nylos almost laughed. The tones held disappointment, annoyance, and even a hint of resentment, but heavily overlaid with respect. An interesting and complex mix, little wonder he'd driven Jepheth to distraction.
Decades of practice kept Nylos from even smiling. He took a sip of brandy, enjoying the warmth of it before it flowed down his throat.
"No, Arainai, I'm not. You can try asking Malusa. But I doubt she'll tell you anything."
During dinner, Nylos went over the sextant and how to use it. When the stars came out, Zevran proved a quick student.
"So many stars," Zevran said, after they'd been at it for well over an hour. "How did they decide which ones to use? I mean, if you picked the wrong ones, you could end up in the wrong place, couldn't you? Or would you just wander all over the ocean? Or perhaps-"
Nylos chuckled, then gently pulled the sextant out of Zevran's hands. "Go get some sleep. You're taking the late watch."
"Yes, master," Zevran murmured, then turned to settle in for the night. It didn't take him long to fall asleep.
With his back to the fire to preserve night vision, Nylos took a sighting on a brilliant point of light just above the moon, now more than halfway up the sky. The star lay in the direction of home, over where he'd been born. He still thought about home sometimes. Though he felt as if he remembered someone else's life, someone else's family. The Crows bought their apprentices young because they believed that it made it easier to shape them into a tool for killing. Though the Guild raised them to know murder, training walked a fine line between harsh and brutalizing. Under heat and pressure, iron became steel, supple and strong, to be shaped into whatever weapon was needed. But apply too much heat or pressure at the wrong time, and you ended up with a blade that easily shattered.
It took many years and a lot of gold to train a skilled assassin. The Guild wanted to recoup every coin of their investment and a handsome profit, as well. Though losses were inevitable and accepted as a cost of doing business, the Guild didn't want them to cut too deeply into profits.
Nylos lowered the sextant. Memory wasn't perfect. Guild training knew that and assumed that early memories faded and fragmented beneath a harsh regimen. Many did, but some things…some things one never forgot. Some things one recalled as clear and clean as the day they happened.
He closed his eyes and remembered the day he'd been sold to the Crows. That morning, there had been the smell of raisin bread baking in an outdoor oven. The deep clear blue of an Antivan summer sky and the yellow heat of the sun on his arms. The sweet taste of cool water sliding down his throat. His father singing as he mended a fishing net. The whir of his mother's spinning wheel. His parent's cries when the debt collector came to collect their youngest child for the slave market for payment. These things he'd remembered and hidden deep inside his soul. It hurt to remember them. It would hurt more to forget.
Carefully, he packed the sextant back in its wooden box and then went to wake Zevran for his turn at watch.