The King's Blood

voice. Marcus put a hand on the man’s shoulder and steered him back into the shade of the tent.
    “If I kill you or if I burn all your ships,” Marcus said, “then by this time next year, there’s just going to be another bunch like yours in the cove. The bank’s investments are just as much at risk. Nothing changes, and I have to come back here and have this same talk with someone else.”
    “You’ve burned her. You burned my ship.”
    “Try to stay with me,” Marcus said, lowering Rinál back to the ground. The pirate put his head in his hands. Marcus took the two steps to his field desk and took out the paper Cithrin had prepared for him. He’d meant to drop it haughtily at the pirate’s feet, but the man seemed so shaken, he tucked it into his lap instead.
    “That’s a list of the ships we insure out of Porte Oliva. If I have to find you again, offering yourself to the magistrate is the best thing that could happen.”
    The breeze shifted and the smell of burning pitch filled the tent and spoiled the taste of the sausages. The leather walls chuffed like tiny sails. Rinál opened the papers.
    “If the ship’s not listed here…”
    “Then it’s no business of mine.”
    “I’m not the only ships on these waters,” he said. “If someone else…”
    “You should discourage them.”
    The color was starting to come back to Rinál’s cheeks. The shock had begun to fade and the old righteousness return, but it was tempered now. The voices coming up from the water were brighter now, laughing. Those would be Marcus’s soldiers. A wagon creaked. It was time to move on.
    “You’ll travel with us as far as Cemmis township,” Marcus said. “That’s not too far to walk back from before your people get sick from thirst.”
    “You think you’re such a big man, no one can take you down,” the pirate said. “You think you’re better than me. You’re no different.”
    Marcus leaned against the field desk, looking down at the pirate. In truth, Rinál was a young man. For all his bluster and taking on airs, he was the same sort who tripped drunk men in taprooms and groped women in the street. He was a badly behaved child who, instead of growing to manhood, had found a few ships and taken his bullying out in the world where it could turn him a profit.
    A dozen replies came to Marcus. When you’ve watched your family die, say that again and Grow up, boy, while you still have the chance and Yes, I’m better than you; my ship isn’t burning .
    “We’ll leave soon,” he said. “I have guards posted. Don’t try to go without us.”
    Outside, the little two-masted ship roared in flame. Black smoke billowed from her, carrying sparks and embers up to wheeling birds. Marcus walked down the rise to where the carts were lining up, prepared to head back home. One of his younger Kurtadam was in the medical wagon, his arm being shaved and bound. Beneath the pelt, his skin looked just like a Firstblood’s.
    The dead enemy sailor was laid out under tarps. The rest, bound in ranks with arms bent back, were sullen and angry. Marcus’s men were grinning and trading jokes. It was like the aftermath of a battle, only this time there’d hardly been any bloodshed. The wet sand was smooth where the waves washed their footprints away. The mules, ignoring the smell of flames and the banter of soldiers, pulled wagons filled with silks and worked brass back toward the road. The smells of salt and smoke mixed.
    Marcus felt the first tug of returning darkness at the back of his mind. The aftermath of any fight—great battle or tap-room dance—always had that touch of bleakness. The brightness and immediacy of the fight gave way, and the world and all its history poured back in. It was worse when he lost, but even in victory, the darkness was there. He put it aside. There was real work to be done.
    Yardem stood by the head wagon, a Cinnae boy on a lathered horse at his side. A messenger. As he approached, the boy dropped down and led his mount away to be cared for.
    “Where do we stand?” Marcus asked.
    “Ready to start back, sir. But might be best if I led the column. The magistra wants you back at the house as soon as you can get there.”
    “What’s happened?”
    Yardem shrugged eloquently.
    “An honest war,” he said.

Cithrin
     
    T
    he reports were completed and sealed, the pages sewn shut and wax pressed all around with the seal of the Medean bank interspersed with Pyk’s personal sign. With all the