The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [79]
“Working? Both of them?” The princess of Crotheny, working? Anne, working?
“Yes. As washerwomen, scullery maids, and the like.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Passage on a ship costs money. Coming from the coven, they wouldn’t have much, would they? Perhaps nothing. From what I know of Cazio, he would have none at all, and if he did, z’Acatto would drink it up in short order. It could take them another month or two to earn the fare.”
“There must be some other way to find them. I can’t wait so long.”
She licked her finger and gave him a disgusted look. “Take a walk. Pretend to look at the fish, or something. You’re starting to annoy me.”
“I don’t mean—”
“Go!” She waved the back of her hand.
“I’ll check the other ships,” he muttered.
He walked down the quay, trying to contain his frustration, trying to think of some strategy that Vaseto had not. But he knew little of cities, especially foreign ones and ones of this size. He had never imagined so many people would crowd into one place. Eslen had seemed unimaginably huge to him when he’d first seen it, but z’Espino was so vast, he had trouble comprehending it even when he was in the midst of it.
He pretended, as Vaseto suggested, to examine the wares of merchants and the cargo being unloaded from ships, but his attention drifted always to the ships themselves, and his desire to have one beneath his feet again. He hadn’t felt the sea road under him since arriving at Eslen with Sir Fail. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.
Far down on his right, he saw the sky-spearing masts of a Saltmark brimwulf, and decided to walk the other way—the brimwolves were the favorite man-o’-war of the Hansan navy.
Walking left, his eyes traced a three-masted galley from Ter-na-Fath, from whose bow stared the carved wooden face of Saint Fronvin, the sea-queen, her hair carved to resemble churning waves. Moored just beyond was a langzkef of Herilanz, so like the galleys of the weihand raiders Neil had grown up fighting, with single sail, fifty oars, and an iron head for ramming. A battered, gallean shrimper was just putting in, its crew casting lines onto the dock.
Past the shrimper was a neat little boat, sleek of line as a porpoise, not too big, but with five masts in all. She would be quick in the turn, a wave-dancer. The cut of her looked northern, but nothing identified her origin immediately to his eye. She flew no standard, and she had no name painted on her. He stopped, scrutinizing the craft, challenged by its anonymity. A few men were working on board, light of skin and hair, which said northern, also. He couldn’t hear if they were saying anything.
A little shock ran through him, as he realized someone was watching him from the porthole in the fo’c’sle. Someone with intense blue eyes, and a face so young, beautiful, and sad it made his heart tremor. For a long moment, their gazes were locked. Then she turned away, retreated into the darkness of the ship.
Embarrassed, he looked away. He’d done just the thing Vaseto told him to avoid—he’d been noticed.
He moved away from the dock, and his heart lifted a bit when he saw an achingly familiar sight—the mast-shaped spire of a chapel of Saint Lier. Without hesitation, he entered.
It had been too long since he had prayed. When he emerged a short time later, his step felt lighter. As he walked back to where he had left Vaseto, he studiously avoided looking at the strange ship.
“There you are,” Vaseto said when he arrived. “I knew it would be good luck to send you away.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cazio. He just boarded that ship.” She waved at a four-masted merchantman.
“That’s a Vitellian ship,” he said.
“Yes. Bound for Paldh. Don’t watch too closely.”
“Were Anne and Austra with him?”
“No. Look at me.”
With some difficulty, he tore his gaze from the ship and looked into Vaseto’s brown eyes.
“There,” she said. “Pretend you’re interested in me, not the ship.”
“I—” the image of another pair of eyes flickered through his memory—those of the woman he’d seen on the ship. And then, with