The Fox Read Online Free PDF Page B

official buildings (many still under construction from the burnings of the last civil war) to the older shops and eateries and doss-houses used by the seagoing trade. It was so late most shops were closed up, but light emanated from a low-roofed sailors’ place—the sign bore a crudely painted schooner on the side of a beer mug—at an intersection lit by hanging lanterns.
    The stuffy interior smelled of brine, sweat, stale beer, and boiled cabbage, a tang too familiar in every port they’d ever visited to be noticed. Testhy, still shocked at how close he had come to being arrested—or maybe killed, or given over to the Venn—plopped into a chair at a corner table near an open window, where they could see the door and the other patrons, and where they had a second exit; so much of Inda’s training had become habit. He thrust trembling fingers through his hair to his scalp, pressing hard as if to hold his head together. And some Toaran with a name that sounded like a snake’s hiss . His breath chuffed out.
    “Talk,” Jeje said low-voiced, in Iascan.
    Testhy had learned that language over the past five years. “Inda is a Marlovan. Son of a prince. Ryala Pim showed up at Freeport Harbor right after we were on the Dancy, remember? About to winter over?”
    Jeje nodded. “And you didn’t tell any of us?”
    “Kodl ordered us not to. Said Inda didn’t want anyone to know. Didn’t make any difference any way I could see, so I forgot about it. Anyway, she accused us all of being pirates. Wouldn’t listen, accused us of Leugre’s mutiny! Demanded the money for her ships. Then when Inda tried talkin’ sved, she spouted all that—even said his real name—and some gabble about how some other Marlovan had accused him of being a coward or killing some other boy or something, where those Marlovans do their war training when they’re young. Didn’t make any sense. What did make sense was the threat Ryala Pim made: she was going to report us in every harbor. And then she disappeared—by magic token!” He snapped his fingers. “Like that!” He scowled. “We saw her signed-sealed sved today. She musta reported us right here, in this harbor.” He jerked his thumb down at the unswept floor.
    Jeje shrugged off the existence of the capital list for a moment. Inda?
    She glared at Testhy, jaw jutted, her brown eyes so wide he could see the whites all the way around.
    “I can’t believe Inda is a coward, or whatever it was those stupid Marlovans said. It’s impossible.” Her voice was already low—she sounded like one of the fellows if you didn’t see her speak—but now it was so husky she seemed to be growling. “But I guess I’m not surprised he’s some sort of lord. He knows too much. I mean about reading and history. You hear about how princes and princesses get armies of tutors and servants and things. But none of that matters now. What is important is if the Khanerenth navy did send ships, they’ll kill our friends. Except Inda, who will be a prisoner given to the Venn.”
    “That seems to be it.”
    “Based on the lies Ryala Pim told.”
    Testhy scratched his head again, tiredness and the flood of giddy relief after the shock of his near escape making his mind foggy. No one had bothered to come out of the back room to wait on them. The few other mariners at the other plank tables sat drinking or talking in low voices. “Seems to me that the Venn won’t care about the ships. They want Inda. Rank. Marlovan. It would mean something if the Venn tell the Marlovans they have him.”
    “That’s politics, all right,” Jeje said in disgust. “You know it as well as I do; Inda’s been with us since our rat days, and he was too small to have fouled the hawses of kings and land battles and the like. Not on his own. The whole thing sounds like an excuse for politics of some kind, and it makes my gut boil!”
    “But that’s in Iasca Leror, clear on the other side of the world.” Testhy turned up his palms.