Sons of the Oak

Rhianna lay in bed for much of the morning. As the other children rose and climbed up the ladder to eat, she just lay wrapped in her blanket. Myrrima cleaned the room for the day, folding clothes, making beds. She studied Rhianna and asked, “Hey, you, ready for breakfast?”

Rhianna shook her head. “Not hungry. I feel sick.”

“Seasick or sick sick?”

“Seasick.” It was a handy lie, and wouldn’t require her to hold a lamp to her head to produce a fever.

“The whole Ainslee family is down with it,” Myrrima said, referring to a refugee family that slept in the hold, near the pens of chickens and ducks and pigs. “Want a bucket, or can you make it topside when the time comes?”

Rhianna’s stomach was in a jumble. Murder didn’t sit well with her. “A bucket.” Myrrima produced a wooden bucket from under one of the bunks, apparently left for just such an emergency, and Rhianna lay abed. Borenson and Fallion came back down to the cabin; Borenson told

Myrrima, “Streben is dead.” Myrrima held her breath for a moment, and said, “You killed him?” “Nah,” Borenson said. “Someone else did it for me.” “The captain thought I did it!” Fallion chimed in. “They found Hum frey dead.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Myrrima offered. She leaned over and gave him a long, heartfelt hug.

“And Captain Stalker found the strengi-saat’s blood on my knife,” Fallion continued. “And he thought it was Streben’s blood.”

Rhianna felt even worse with that news. She had a sudden vision of Fallion swinging from the yardarm for her crime.

Borenson guffawed with laughter. “Go clean your knife. You know better than to leave it in such shape.”

Fallion hurried toward the ladder.

Myrrima hissed. “You can’t send him up to clean his knife. The crew will see. They’ll see it as a confession.”

Fallion faltered in his steps.

“ I’m not going to clean it,” Borenson said.

Rhianna wondered if she should offer to clean it. It would only be fitting that she get the blame.

“No one should clean it,” Myrrima said. “Leave it bloody for a couple of days, but leave it sheathed.”

She peered at Borenson and said, “So what now? Is the captain going to put Fallion on trial, or what?”

Borenson chuckled. “He asked Fallion to be his cabin boy. I don’t think he believes that Fallion is innocent, so he’s rewarding him.”

“Rewarding him for killing a man?” Myrrima asked, incredulous.

Borenson shrugged. “It’s the pirate blood in him, I guess. I’m not worried about the captain. He seems to like Fallion. But we might have to worry about some of the crew.”

Myrrima said, “Streben couldn’t have had many friends. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about reprisals too much. Besides, anyone could have killed him.”

“Yeah, but it was Fallion’s ferrin that’s dead.”

Myrrima thought for a long moment, then asked, “Fallion, is there something that you’re not telling us?”

Borenson guffawed. “A fine family we make, all sitting around the breakfast table accusing each other of murder!”

“I didn’t do it,” Myrrima said. “And you didn’t do it. And Humfrey was in the cabin when we went to bed. He crawled over my feet a dozen times during the night.”

“You know how ferrins are,” Borenson said. “Most likely he found a rat hole and got out on his own. Or maybe one of the kids went up to the poop deck in the night, and Humfrey bolted out the door.”

Borenson held his breath a long moment. Rhianna lay beneath her blanket. She imagined that everyone was peering at her. They’d finally put two and two together. So she peeked up over the edge of the blanket.

No one was looking at her. They all sat with their heads bowed in thought. No one suspected her.

I’m just a child in their eyes, she realized. I’m just a sick little wounded girl.

With that, she knew that no one would suspect her, ever.

“I’m sorry about your nephew,” Fallion told Captain Stalker later that afternoon when he reported for duty in the captain’s cabin. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it. He was glad that Streben was dead, and he suspected that Stalker didn’t care much either way.

The captain fixed him with an appraising stare and said, “When I was a lad half your age, me father put me on his knee and told me somethin’ I want you to remember. He said, ‘Many a man, when ’e gets angry, will go about threatenin’ to kill a fella. ’E’ll scream about it and tell any neighbor who is willin’ to listen. That’s one kind of fella.

“ ‘But then there’s another kind, the kind who won’t tell a soul. But ’e’ll come to that man’s door one night, and ’e’ll have a knife up his sleeve.’ ” His voice got soft and thoughtful. “ ‘And ’e’ll ’ave a hole dug in the fields nearby. And when ’is enemy comes to the door, ’e’ll give no warning. ’E just takes care of business.’ ”

Stalker went silent for a long moment. “ ‘That’s the kind of man I want you to be.’ That’s what me da tol’ me.”

Stalker hadn’t taken the advice, of course. For years he’d worked as an honest merchant marine, determined to forget his past, his upbringing. But when you do that, he’d found, you get soft, and the world can come crashing down on you in a hurry. Sometimes he thought that if he could start all over again, he’d have been better off listening to his father.

Stalker thought for a moment. “Streben killed your ferrin, and you killed ’im. Don’t cry about it now, and don’t pretend to be sorry. When it comes time to gut a man, just take ’im down quietly. That’s the dignified way. Got it?”

Fallion nodded, hurt that the captain thought he was guilty.

“Good,” the captain said, slapping him on the shoulder. “I’m ’appy to meet a lad of your character.”

Fallion peered up at Stalker in surprise. He wanted to proclaim his innocence. He hadn’t killed anyone. Yet the admiration in the captain’s voice was so sincere, Fallion almost wished that he had.

What’s more, he was curious to learn about the captain. It sounded as if Stalker had been raised by wolves in human form. But the truth was even more apparent: Captain Stalker really was from pirate blood.

So as the captain made his rounds, Fallion began to clean his cabin. There was a great deal of booty lying about-wooden crates filled with Mystarria’s rarest wines, valuable books, women’s finery, valuable herbs and perfumes, jewels, and so on.

The captain had Fallion enter each item into a ledger. The wines went under his bed. The rest went into a secret compartment hidden in the wall above his bunk. Fallion was surprised at some of the items: there were twenty longbows made of Sylvarresta spring steel, for instance. These were in short supply even in Mystarria, and their sale to foreigners-potential enemies-was illegal. The bows were too powerful.

While he was stowing gear, Fallion found a wooden box in the desk. He pulled it out to discover its contents, and found a second ledger, one with ale-stained paper, its list of contents on the last page all duly verified and stamped by the harbormaster from the Courts of Tides.

Fallion compared his own ledger, the real ledger, to the one official one, and found that their contents matched nicely, so long as he only counted what was carried in the hold: hundreds of barrels of liquor, bricks of cheese, bolts of cloth, and so on. But the booty Fallion found stowed in the captain’s cabin, items that were small and valuable, were worth almost as much as everything carried below.

Stalker was a smuggler.

The realization jarred Fallion. The captain seemed to be a friendly enough sort.

Fallion dutifully stowed the gear, then got a bucket of hot water and some lye soap, and scrubbed the floors, the desk, everything.

He wanted the captain to appreciate his work. In time that appreciation would lead to trust, and the trust to greater responsibilities. Eventually, Fallion could learn how to run the whole ship.

But it all started here on the floor, he told himself. Getting the grime off.

When he was tired, he lit a candle and checked the cabin to make sure that the room was neat and cozy.

Fallion sagged into the captain’s chair behind the desk, weary to the bone. He just peered at the candle for a long moment, mesmerized by the multitude of colors in a single flame-the pale white and blue near the wick, the golds and shades of orange. He studied the way that the flame danced, stirring to unseen winds.

Fallion tried to anticipate the flame, envision which way it would bend, when it would sputter or burn low, or suddenly elongate and grow hot as it found new fuel. But he could not anticipate it. The flame seemed to surprise him, to always be just beyond his understanding.

“Are you a flameweaver?” Smoker had asked, laughing.

Now Fallion began to ask that question of himself.

He remembered how the torch had blazed in his hand when he fought the strengi-saat. He’d imagined at the time that something about the beast had caused it, as if its breath exploded like the gases deep in a mine.

But now Fallion wondered if he had summoned the inferno without thinking, so that in an instant he burned the torch to a stub.

“Torch-bearer.” That’s what the old man had called him. Fallion liked that name. A torch-bearer was someone who brought light to others.

It’s a good name, he thought. A good destiny.

He peered at the flame, willed it to burn brighter, to fill the room with light. But for as long as he watched it, nothing happened.

So he decided to bend the flames. He had heard of a lad in Heredon who could cause cinders to rise up into the sky, to hurtle up like shooting stars, or cause flowers to appear in the flames, or send them up in braids, creating a knot of light.

Fallion studied the light for a long time, tried to work his will with it.

But nothing happened.

“You must make a sacrifice to the light,” a voice seemed to whisper. It was a memory, Fallion felt sure, of something that Hearthmaster Waggit had once told him. The greater Powers could not be controlled, only served. Fallion’s father had been the Earth King because he served the earth well, suborned his will to the earth’s.

But what did the flames desire?

Food.

Fallion recalled an old joke that Hearthmaster Waggit had once told. “What do you call a young flameweaver?”

Fallion knew that there were different names for flameweavers within their order. One who could call flame into existence at will was called an incendiary. One who could burst into flame himself, stand like a fire, was called an immolator. But Fallion had never heard the names for the lowest levels of the order.

Fallion had struggled, guessing words that were unfamiliar: an apprentice? A novice? An acolyte?

Waggit had smiled. “An arsonist.”

Because they had to serve fire. They had to feed the flames continually.

Fallion took an old slip of paper from the drawer, a crumpled paper with only a few notes written on it. He wadded it up, held it above the candle.

“Come and get it,” he whispered.

The flame bent toward the paper, magically reaching out as if with a long finger, and burning into it greedily.

Fallion held the paper in his hand even as it burned, letting the flames lick his fingers for as long as he could. It surprised him at how little pain there was. He was able to withstand it for quite a while before he threw the paper down.

In that moment, Fallion felt wiser, clearer of vision than ever before.

Are you a flameweaver? the old man had asked.

“Yes,” Fallion answered.

Moments later, the captain came in, and Fallion found himself peering up into the man’s face. The books were open on the table, though Fallion had all but forgotten them.

The captain sniffed the air. “What you been burning?” he demanded.

Fallion grinned as if at a joke. “Evidence.”

Stalker grinned suspiciously, nodded with his chin, and asked, “Understand those books?”

“Your handwriting is all scribbles,” Fallion said, “but I understand. You’re a smuggler.”

The captain looked at him narrowly, as if considering. “Sometimes, a man is forced to cut corners, do somethin’ ’e don’t care for. Even a man that ’as scruples.” And it was true. Stalker had bills to pay, money that went to shadowy types that he didn’t even want to think about, and he had been forced to smuggle more and more these past four years. But the truth was, he’d always carried a little load on the side. “So’s I work some deals under the table. The fancy lords in their manors don’t know. But no one gets ’urt much. Do ya ’ate me for it?”

Fallion thought for a long moment, wondering if Stalker had a locus.

If he does, Fallion wondered, why is he trying to befriend me?

Stalker interrupted his thoughts, “Who owns wealth?”

“Those who create it, I guess,” Fallion said.

Stalker considered his own ill fortune, and frowned. “That’s who should own it, but that’s not who does own it. Not in the end. Gold flows into your ’ands, and gold flows out. There’s many a man who works ’ard for his pay, works his whole life. But in the end you’re just food for the worms in the ground. You’ll lose it sure, when you die, but probably sooner. Maybe you lose it ’cause you’re a fool, so you throw it to the wind on a ship that runs aground. Or you lose it to drink or whores-or worse, you waste it on the damned poor, them what never has figured out ’ow to make it on their own. In the end, we all lose it.

“Now, me father, he would ’ave told you that them what can’t keep wealth don’t deserve it. It’s like givin’ a monkey a carriage, or a pig a castle. They may enjoy it for a moment, but they ’aven’t the brains or the discipline to hold on to it. And you know why? Because in the end, the ones who own wealth, the ones who keep it, are those that are strong enough, cunnin’ enough, and cruel enough to take it and ’old on for dear life. That’s who the wealth really belongs to.”

Fallion gave him a questioning look. Hearthmaster Waggit had taught that wealth flowed from the creation of goods. But Waggit’s teachings didn’t mesh at all well with what Stalker had to say.

Stalker continued. “Look, it’s like this. A king collects taxes, right? He takes the wealth from his vassals, sends his lords out every autumn to gather in the ’arvest. But did ’e do any work for that? Is ’e the one who milked the cows and turned the milk into butter? Is ’e the one that broke ’is back with a scythe out in the fields, reaping the wheat and grinding it down to meal? Is ’e the one that dug the clay and burned ’is hands when ’e baked the bricks to build a house? No, the king-’e’s just a lord, a man with weapons and an army and the guts to cut down any honest folk what stands up to ’im.”

Fallion understood Stalker’s reasoning, and he could easily argue against it. He could argue that a lord performed services for the taxes that he collected, that he fought and suffered and bled to protect his people, and in doing so, he was partly responsible for creating wealth.

But Fallion knew better. Even as a child he could see the truth, and the truth was that Fallion was raised in comfort, given the best of everything, and he had done nothing to deserve it.

The only difference between Fallion and the utterly impoverished towheaded boys who herded hogs in the hills above Castle Coorm was that Fallion’s family had a history of taking from their vassals, keeping their families in relative poverty while his own family enjoyed the spoils.

Fallion didn’t believe for a minute that he worked harder for his wealth, suffered more, or deserved any better treatment than the peasants who worked the fields. He’d watched the smith’s apprentice, breathing coal-fire at the forge all day, hammering out metal. What a wretched, cramped little life the lad lived.

But Fallion had never worked so hard.

Hearthmaster Waggit had tried to explain the truth away, but Fallion saw behind the lie.

“So, ’ow is a king different from any other thief?” Stalker asked.

“He’s not,” Fallion agreed. “He gives just enough service so that he can tell himself that he’s a good man and get some sleep at night.”

Stalker gave Fallion a long appraising look, as if he’d expected some grand argument.

“That’s a sad truth,” Stalker said. “Them what owns wealth is them what’s strong enough and cunnin’ enough and cruel enough to seize it.” He knelt down so that he could peer Fallion in the eye. “So now I ask: why shouldn’t that someone be you and me?”

So that was the whole of his philosophy, Fallion realized. We are all destined to end up with nothing, so why not grab all that you can for as long as you can?

The notion sickened Fallion. What’s more, he could see that it sickened Captain Stalker, too. He argued, but it was only words coming out of his mouth. His heart wasn’t in it.

“Was your da a pirate?”

Stalker grinned. “No. Now, me grandda was a pirate. But Da, he swabbed another man’s deck.”

Fallion found it intriguing. Stalker was steeped in an evil culture, and Fallion wanted to understand evil, to see the world through the eyes of evil men. He thought that in doing so, he might better understand how to fight a locus. And Stalker was giving him a primer in evil, discussing philosophies that Fallion would never have heard from Hearthmaster Waggit’s tame tongue.

Fallion decided that Stalker was a likable fellow underneath it all. And Fallion knew that sometimes even an honorable man got backed into a corner and had to do things that he didn’t want to. “No. I don’t hate you.”

“Good boy,” the captain said with a grin. “Now go tell Cook to make you some rum puddin’.”

Fallion raced out of the room feeling light of heart, secure in the knowledge that he had made a friend.