“What did you hope to achieve?”
Asima shrugged again.
“I have no wish to visit Velutio and I believe the word you’re looking for, Ghassan, is sabotage. You’ll have to put in at the nearest island and I will find a way to leave you whatever you do to contain me.”
Ghassan snarled at her.
“You stupid woman! You risked your life and ours because you are so damned spoiled that you will have your own way whatever the cost? Just how selfish have you become, Asima?”
She allowed her sneer to remain while the smile fell from her face.
“Your words mean nothing to me, Ghassan, because you mean nothing to me. I have been mere steps away from becoming one of the most powerful queens the world has ever seen and I will have that again, despite the interference of mindless soldiers.”
Ghassan laughed without a hint of humour.
“Well I’m afraid you’ve failed this time. I have no intention of putting to port. It will take the best part of a day for my chief carpenter and his men to work up a replacement and a matter of hours to fit it. By this time tomorrow we will be on our way once more.”
He turned and pointed angrily at her.
“In the meantime, you are restricted to your cabin. It will be locked from the outside and your window will be barred, even though I doubt you would fit through it. The only contact you will have with the crew is when Palas brings you your meals and you’ve never met a more straight-laced and unfriendly man than Palas. He will have none of your charm. Were it not for the fact that you are supposedly a noble guest and I am duty-bound to look after you, I would have you locked in one of the equipment rooms down below in the dark.”
He smiled his least humorous smile.
“And if there is the slightest hint of trouble from you for the rest of the voyage, I will be seriously tempted to tip you over the side in chains and tell the commodore that you leapt to your death. Do I make myself clear?”
Asima flashed him a haughty and disobedient look.
“Just leave me. Your stench will settle in the cabin for days otherwise.”
Ghassan let his glare linger on her for some time and then strode from the room, stopping at the door, removing the key and placing it in the outside. As he shut the door and locked it, he addressed the junior officer in the corridor beyond.
“The lady Asima is refused permission to leave her room. She will be brought three meals each day and once a day a boy will be sent in to replace her shit-bucket. Clear?”
The young man saluted with a nod and Ghassan strode angrily off down the corridor and out into the light. Eying the inactivity on the deck with frustration, he considered bellowing orders out to the lounging oarsmen to scrub decks or re-coil ropes. No use taking it out on them, though. They worked hard when needed and it was hardly their fault that his childhood friend had turned into a saboteur. What he’d really like to do was to cuff Asima round the ear and try to knock some sense of decency into her.
He turned, grumbling, and climbed the steps to the command deck. Half a dozen carpenters were at work near the rear rail, putting together a replacement mechanism for the rudder. He’d known it was on its way out, but it should have lasted the journey and Velutio had some of the most famous docks and shipwrights in the world. He would have easily replaced it within an hour at the capital.
Now, his men worked tirelessly to form a new one from bare chunks of wood with their saws, chisels and planes, but he knew his men and was quietly confident that the new item would be finished and in position before the end of the day, let alone tomorrow.
Calamon, the first officer, nodded at him from the other side of the deck.
“Captain.”
Ghassan strode over to join his second. Calamon was young for the position, much like his captain, but had previously served with distinction and had done an excellent job in the last few weeks on board. The tall, olive- complexioned man was a native of Germalla to the north and spoke with an accent that still occasionally caught Ghassan out and needed repeats.
“Calamon.”
The two men stood, looking down into the calm water as shoals of fish came close enough to investigate the giant thing that had invaded their habitat. The first officer appeared to be a quiet man, possibly a result of the slight language difficulties, but he tended to keep himself away from the crew, often standing alone at the rail.
“You have questioned the princess, captain?”
Ghassan snorted.
“If that’s what you wish to call her. She can call herself princess, concubine, queen or goddess if she wants. What she is is a spoiled brat and possibly the most dangerous thing we’ve ever had on board.”
Calamon’s face dipped into a frown.
“I thought when she came aboard that you were friends, sir?”
The captain shook his head.
“We were, when we were children in M’Dahz; the two of us and my brother. But while I chose an honourable path and am making a life and serving a greater good, she appears to have spent the last two decades serving only herself and growing to resent everything else. When I was a boy I was always fascinated by tales of the Pelasian satraps and their armies, with elephants and armoured cavalry and their perfumed palaces and so on.”
He sighed.
“But I see now that Pelasia, whatever it is truly like, has ruined Asima; turned her into a spiteful witch.”
With a laugh, he gestured out to the northwest.
“I can only pity the poor bastards in Velutio that are going to get saddled with her for the next few decades. She’s been on board for just over a day and she’s already ruined my ship.”
Calamon smiled.
“Hardly ruined, captain. Think how much worse her sabotage could have been if she knew the first thing about ships…”
“I suppose.”
Once more the two men fell silent, staring out at the sea.
“Did you lock her in?”
Ghassan turned to regard his first officer.
“Had to. Why?”
“Very unpleasant with no fresh air, sir. Trapped in a room with a slop bucket. It’s not as though she could do much during the day with the crew up and about, sir.”
Ghassan shook his head.
“At the very least she could make another run for it. I really wouldn’t put it past her to jump overboard in her underwear and swim for the nearest island.”
Calamon opened his mouth to reply with a sly smile, but was interrupted with a call from aloft and his words went unsaid.
“Sail ho!”
The two senior officers snapped their heads back and peered up through the rigging. The boy at the top of the main sail was gesturing desperately out to the east past where the workmen dealt with the damaged rudder and off beyond the stern.
Ghassan and Calamon ran across the deck to the rear rail, hurdling the carpenters who sat cross legged, working feverishly.
Shading their eyes and squinting into the low morning sun, they could just make out the shape of the ship ploughing toward them on a direct course.
“Tell me there are other naval vessels out this far, Calamon.”
The first officer shook his head.
“I’d seriously doubt it sir. Too close to Pelasian waters for anyone unless they’re making for Velutio like us.”
“And that’s coming from the wrong direction for a Pelasian” Ghassan grimaced. “Besides, I think the sail shape’s wrong.”
As they watched, Ghassan started in horror to see a sudden flare as a mass of burning material arced up
