Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [244]
Kazan watched it all with a look of irony. "You have become a luck-piece, eh?" he said to me. "It is a thing I never dreamed, to go home to Epidauro. If you are ready, we sail, we."
The wind was blowing fresh and steady, the sea beyond the harbor dancing with white-crested ripples; a brisk sea, but not treacherous, the kind of challenge Illyrian sailors dearly love. I felt the wind tug at my hair and smiled.
"I am ready, my lord pirate. Let's sail."
SIXTY-FIVE
It was, for once, an uneventful sea journey. Although the nights were cool, the winds and the weather held fair. The repairs made to the ship in the Temenos served admirably, and it was wholly seaworthy. Kazan had made good use of his time in Phaistos and our stores were replenished; moreover, he had bartered for charts of the Hellene waters, enabling him to plot a swift course homeward.
We crossed first a vast expanse of open sea, the steep mountains of Kriti dwindling quickly to a speck behind us.
From thence it was a mere day's sail to reach sight of the Hellene mainland. Mindful of our terrifying, storm-born flight southward, Kazan was careful to keep always within sight of the coast, which lay off our starboard bow.
Although our progress was steady, it was a slow business, working our way up the coast. My euphoria at the sending of the Kritian courier had faded, and my thoughts turned once more to La Serenissima, rendering me fretful and overly conscious of the passing of time. I spent fruitless hours guessing at the course of Ysandre's progressus, and I daresay strained even Glaukos' patience quizzing him on the length of Caerdicci roadways. He knew them well enough, having been a merchant's clerk during his slave days, but he could guess no better than I how swiftly a progressus regalis would travel, nor how long the D'Angeline monarch would linger in any given city.
Of a surety, though, we were well into autumn, and Ysandre's entourage would turn for home before ,the season's end. I slept poorly at night and took to wandering the decks, wrapped in my woolen mantle, the Kore's gift. The sailors on watch seemed glad enough of my company, and taught me Illyrian songs and jests, showing me, too, such games as they played to pass the time. I learned to throw dice on Kazan's ship and became a passing fair hand at it, for it requires a certain deftness of wrist, not unlike some of Naamah's arts.
As for those, Kazan Atrabiades never laid a hand upon me; and in truth, I am not sure what I would have done if he had. It was due in part to shipboard discipline, for Kazan was one of those leaders who would do without whatsoever his men did—and too, there was little privacy on a ship of that size. Indeed, I was acutely reminded of this each time it was necessary to relieve myself, which, I may add, is no easy chore on a ship lacking a privy. I had cause then to be grateful for Illyrian modesty.
But in greater part, Kazan's forbearance was due to what he had undergone in the thetalos, for he spoke candidly of it to me on the first day aboard the ship.
"What we had between us, you and I; know that I do not look for that again, to have you in that way." He shook his head, tear-shaped pearl eardrops glimmering in the dim light of the cabin. I had learned since first we met that Illyrian sailors believe they enhance vision; even Kazan was superstitious enough to believe it. "It is a thing I saw, in the thetalos, I. A guest, I named you, for although I lost my birthright, I had pride, I, in what I made of Dobrek, yes." He laughed. 'To shun the title of lord, and to live as one, eh? And a pirate, too, as it pleased me. I made you a bargain, you, that was no bargain. I knew you could not say no. If I had not, maybe things would have been different, eh? If we had trusted to speak truth, we, the Serenissimans would not have tricked us. So." He shrugged. "Now, I do not ask, I."
"Thank you, my lord Kazan." I smiled. "It is a lordly