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up, watching the pirate ship.
"Leaving, I think," said the Taig captain.
Sails billowed out, filling with wind. The anchor went up, water dripping from
it and flashing in the first rays of the rising sun.
"They've decided to abandon their kin," said one of the Taig sailors.
"What do you expect of pirates?" said another sailor. The ship headed north and
west, vanishing at last among the waves. When it was gone, the Taig captain
said, "We need to spend another day here. I want the two of you -- the women --
to stay on board."
"Why?" asked Ahl.
"What we have to do on shore is not pleasant."
Cremate their dead, Ahl thought, and kill the remaining pirates. Cremation did
not bother her, though it took a primitive form in her era; but the cremation of
Taig men belonged to Taig men. The other activity was male as well.
"We'll stay on board," said Ahl.
Perig and Cholkwa went with the Trig men. Ahl and Leweli went to the cabin. The
day had a mild wind, enough to carry the pirate ship away, but not enough to
bring fresh air through the porthole. The room seemed stifling to Ahl. The baby
fretted. "She misses her potion," Leweli said. "But I'm not giving her any more,
unless she becomes impossible."
The baby became impossible and got more potion. "Just a little, to make her
quiet."
Ahl went through her baggage and repacked everything, made sure her knives were
sharp, then went on deck.
"Something has occurred to me," she said to a sailor. "If you build a fire for
cremation, it may attract more pirates."
"We thought of that," the sailor said. "We won't cremate our men until we're
ready to leave. What the captain is doing now is questioning the pirates. When
he's done, they'll be killed and buried. No reason to burn them. We don't intend
to take their ashes home."
"I haven't heard anything," Ahl said.
"Our men went inland with the pirates. The captain didn't want to bother you.
Sound carries well over water, especially on a day like this."
There were dark shapes on the beach, laid in a line. The Taig dead, almost
certainly. One man stood by them, leaning on a spear. No one else was visible. A
bright hot day. The air barely moved. Bugs would be gathering around the Taig
bodies. Not a pleasant job the watcher had.
Would it be pleasanter to be inland, torturing the captive pirates?
Ahl shook her head, thinking life was full of difficult choices.
IN LATE AFTERNOON the sailors came back, Perig and Cholkwa with them. Ahl waited
on the deck. Cholkwa looked sullen again, while Perig looked grim.
"That's done," the older man said. "The Taig know how to reach the pirates'
homes, though the pirates certainly did not want to give out the information."
"Goddess," said Cholkwa.
"They said they weren't going to harm you," Perig told Ahl. "They let you go,
they said, though my impression at the time was they hadn't noticed your
disappearance. Jehan and Jehan certainly seemed busy with other things. I don't
remember anyone coming to tell them that you were gone, though I was occupied at
the time."
"You shouldn't talk about such things to women," said Cholkwa.
"You did last night."
"I was drunk."
The sailors set to work on their repairs. Most looked grim, though a few seemed
satisfied. The next day the ship was ready to go. They took it out of the
harbor, anchoring where the pirate ship had been, then rowed back to burn their
kinsmen.
This was done at night. Looking through the porthole, Ahl saw the great red
glare of the funeral fire. The air smelled of wood smoke and burning flesh. By
morning the fire was out. No smoke rose into the cloudless sky. The Taig let out
their sails, going west and south over an ocean dotted with foam.
Once the island was gone from sight, the Taig captain called them all on deck.
"I want to know the truth about you people. I've heard one story about you which
is obviously untrue; and our cook says there's another story, which you told the
pirates. Is there a third story? A fourth? A fifth?"
Perig glanced at Ahl. "Tell him what you know," she said.
Perig did, describing how he and Cholkwa and been stranded in the country of the
Sorg. "Like a luat trapped in a too-shallow lagoon." Just when they reached
desperation, the witch appeared and made her offer: money to go south, if they
would escort two women in disguise. "It was wrong to do it, of course," Perig
said. "But we had no alternative."
The Taig captain glanced at Ahl. "Why did you need to flee your home, escorted
by unrelated men? Surely this is shameful behavior."
Ahl told her story: how the Sorg matrons had decided to kill five children in
order to get out of a business contract. One child was left alive, the baby in
the cabin. She and Leweli had decided to save it, advised by the witch who hired
Perig and Cholkwa. "She said it was the right thing to do."
"You've put us in a bad place," the captain said. "It's too late in the season
to turn back and risk more storms. In addition, if I returned you to Sorg, the
Helwar would be angry; and no one makes better ships than they. But if I take
you to Helwar, as I intend to do, I'll make bad enemies among your kin. Why
couldn't you let the child die? The crime --if it is a crime --would not be
yours, but would belong to your mother and the other matriarchs. It's wrong to
take on too much responsibility."
"That may be," said Ahl. "But it's done."
The cook, who had been listening said, "It's my belief that those of us who were
taken prisoner would have died, except for the actors' cleverness. Now that I
know they are not perverts and committers of incest, I can be grateful. Granted,
it's odd for men to travel with unrelated women, but every man is supposed to
help women in need of help; and healthy babies should not be killed, especially
to escape from a business contract. Where will we be, if people don't keep the
agreements they make? I don't intend to tie my mind into knots by trying to make
sense of this situation. Go with the simple solution, kinsman! Thank these folk
for their help, and deliver them to Helwar."
"A good cook is always worth listening to," the captain said. "I will take your
advice."
The ship continued west and south, carried by a mild and steady wind. Leweli
spent most of her time in the cabin, caring for the baby, who was often awake,
now that she no longer got the potion. Without the witch's magic, the child
proved as irritable as any ordinary baby.
"And maybe more so," said Ahl to Perig while explaining why she spent most of
her time on deck. "I'm willing to save the child from death and maybe ruin my
own life by doing so; but I will not listen to her cry."
Several days later, Ahl asked, "Did the tsin ears work the way you expected?"
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