“Give me your hand,” he said.
In this way I would be well located, well held.
He must have been reaching out, over the platform.
“Take instead,” I said, “my foot.”
“What?” he said.
I, clinging to the ring, with all the force in me, kicked out into the darkness.
I heard bone and face crack beneath my boot, and a weird cry, and heard the body strike the ratlines at least twice, before there was a splash below. At almost the same time I could sense vibrations in the ratlines and I knew there was another climber.
“Who is there?” I called.
There was no answer, which told me what I wanted to know. The knife would be clenched between the teeth.
“Man overboard!” I cried, loudly, down to the stem-castle watch, and then back to the helmsman.
He began to put about.
The more men I could bring to the deck the better.
I did not understand why the deck watch did not immediately sound the alarm bar.
I wrapped my cloak about my left arm.
I sensed the knife slash widely, wildly, almost at my ankles. I stumbled backward. A form lunged under the ring to the surface. I threw myself forward, against it. I felt the blade cut through the cloak, but then it was tangled in it, and I lifted my arm pushing the knife hand to the side, and clasped the wrist, and pressed the form to the side, and we grappled in the darkness. I clung to the knife wrist, with an oarsman’s grasp. A hand tore at my hair, pulling my head back, and then scratched across my face. I put my head down, and seized the body with my right arm, so his hand could not reach me, and thrust the body back, toward the ring, and pinned it against the ring, and pressed it back, and back. I heard the spinal column snap, and thrust the form over the ring, and, a long moment later, heard it strike the deck below. I could not understand why the alarm bar had not rung. I staggered back, panting, against the mast. The mast swung with the rolling of the ship, a surprising swell, perhaps from the helmsman’s work.
Almost at the same instant I sensed something pass my head, like a sudden, fierce whisper in the air.
I instantly threw myself to the platform, within the ring.
No bird so flies, not so swift, not so straight, so piercing the wind.
An instant after something new struck the mast, ringing on a metal brace, and caromed far off, over the side, abeam.
I would later discover a gouge on the brace, rather where my head, a moment before, might have stood.
Why did the alarm bar not ring?
To my relief I saw several men begin to emerge from the hatches, doubtless responsive to the ship’s change of motion. Some carried lamps, others lanterns.
It was then the alarm bar began to ring.
In the light of a lantern, below, some men crowding about, I could see the body on the deck.
I saw Tyrtaios pounding on the alarm bar.
“Ho,” called a voice from below, carrying upward, “noble Callias, do you do well?”
“Yes,” I called down.
“Praise the Priest-Kings,” said the voice.
It was Seremides.
Neither he nor Tyrtaios were armed with a crossbow. Such weapons had been perhaps cast overboard.
It was then I understood that Seremides and Tyrtaios were the deck watch.
“Launch a galley!” I called. “One is overboard!” I pointed ahead, the ship now brought about, to where I thought the first assailant had struck the water.
Within the Ahn, by one of two galleys, lanterns suspended on poles over the water, part of the body had been recovered. As I had heard no cry after the first moment of the descent, I suspected he had been dead when he had entered the water, perhaps from a broken neck. We were not clear, at that time, what had fed on the body.
Tyrtaios, below, charged that I had gratuitously killed my relief, but he was cautioned to silence by Seremides, who perhaps feared an inquiry.
By that time Leros had come to the open deck, and it was clear that neither assailant was my relief.
Below I saw the unmistakable figure of the tarnsman, Tarl Cabot.
Seremides drew away from him.
Lords Okimoto and Nishida appeared on deck.
Leros was sent aloft early, that I might be questioned. I knew neither assailant; they turned out to be two men of Lord Nishida’s retinue, neither of the Pani, Fabius and Telarion. I did not even know them. Later Tarl Cabot spoke to me. “There were five,” he said to me, “whom Lord Nishida suspected, and wished to keep close to him, convinced that one at least was a spy and one, perhaps the same, secretly of the Assassins. Two were slain in the northern forest, on the march to the Alexandra, by name Quintus and Lykourgos, and now two others, Fabius and Telarion, are gone.”
“There is a fifth,” I said.
“Yes,” said Cabot.
“Tyrtaios,” I said. I knew he was of the retinue of Lord Nishida.
“Yes,” said Cabot.
“You think he is a spy, or an Assassin?” I said.
“Quite possibly,” said Cabot.
“Why?” I asked.
“Perhaps I think he would look well in black,” said Cabot.
I did not respond.
“I examined his quarters,” said Cabot. “I discovered a small brush, and a tiny vial of black paint.”
“To paint the dagger,” I said.
“It would seem so,” he said.
“Then,” said I, “he is of the Assassins.”
“It would seem so,” said Cabot.
“You have informed Lord Nishida,” I said.
“Yes,” said Cabot.
“Surely, then, he will dismiss him,” I said.
“I think not,” said Cabot.
“Why not?” I asked.
“That is known only to Lord Nishida,” said Cabot.
“Perhaps he has need of an Assassin?”
“Perhaps,” said Cabot.
“Tyrtaios is interested in taking the ship,” I said.
“He will not move until it is practical,” said Cabot.
“Tyrtaios is dangerous,” I said.
“Yes,” said Cabot.
“He should be done away with,” I said.
“I do not think so,” said Cabot.
“Why not?” I said.
“At our destination,” said Cabot, “we may need every sword.”
At this point, Seremides approached, Tyrtaios at his back.
“I am pleased to see that you do well, noble Callias,” said Seremides. “We had feared you might have been injured. We cannot understand the apparent attack upon you, of which you have informed us.”
“I cannot account for it myself, noble Rutilius,” I said. “I did not know the men.”
“It is perhaps then a mistake of some sort, that they thought you another, an enemy, or such?”
“I think so,” I said, “noble Rutilius.”
