Spoiler
One of two simultaneously written NaNo novels, from November of 2010. Crazy month, but I got both done. This is the one that turned out semi-decent, but it still has the level of quality you'd expect from writing at a novel at warp speed in a single month. Hopefully I'll be able to edit as I go, and post some more chapters (maybe the whole thing?) on here, but if you come across something that's really awful, that's probably why. XD
Winner of the First Chapter Contest by Lauren2010 in June, 2011!
Edited 8-21-11
Winner of the First Chapter Contest by Lauren2010 in June, 2011!
Edited 8-21-11
“Hide your discomfort. Show no judgment. The best expression for an ambassador is one of pleasant indifference.”
~
Ambria leaned over the wall, watching the paper fragments flutter down to the sea. The watchmen knew better than to disturb her; this wasn’t the first letter she’d disposed of in such a manner after finding that her instructor had fled in the night, off to Felltree, or Tire, or their country estate. They always left such tidy letters. So delicately worded. Due to your unorthodox style of learning, I feel that you may benefit from the instruction of another ambassador, with interests that more greatly coincide with your own. It seemed almost a pity to throw the careful words into the waves.
Almost.
That’s seven in one year, Ambria thought bitterly. The paper disappeared against the water’s foam. Perhaps I should just accept that only one person could’ve helped me complete my training, and he’s gone now.
This time it had been the silverware. It was always the mealtimes that tripped Ambria up. The very places where an ambassador had to be most careful. Places where your choice of fork could save your life or start a war, and Ambria could never remember whether the six-pronged fork was for the melon dish or the leafy salad.
I’ll never get out into the world. Not with my training only half-finished. The salty sea wind made her eyes water, but she was not crying. Ambria could only hope that the silent guards were coming to the same conclusion from their posts on the otherwise deserted North Wall.
Click. Click. Click.
The familiar taps of wood on stone made Ambria scrub at her eyes and take a deep breath. She knew without turning that Eldiana was behind her, leaning on her staff with a sour expression as she stretched out her leg.
“If I keep up this pace,” Ambria murmured, “the Council will never dare to give me an assignment. They’ll probably expect me to shatter peace rather than maintain it.”
“If you’re done here, you should get back inside,” the old woman. Ambria supposed the gruff old woman had never been one for doling out sympathy.
“Just another moment, please,” she said, eyes fixed on the horizon. She frowned. In the short moments since Eldiana had arrived, something had appeared. Something small and rigid, following the waves to shore. “What is that?”
Eldiana approached the wall, hand on a knife at her belt as if a little thing like that could stop whatever Ambria had spotted.
“It can’t be a boat.” Ambria’s frown deepened. No boat ever came from straight north. From the islands to the northeast and northwest, yes, but never from straight north.
“It is,” Eldiana said slowly.
“But it looks like it’s coming right from the Sea Wall.” Ambria leaned further out over the wall, squinting. Eldiana’s staff hit her chest a second later, knocking her back.
“Watch yourself,” the bodyguard said without looking at her. Ambria pressed her lips into a thin line as she smoothed the front of her dress.
The guards were starting to notice the tiny shape, too, muttering among themselves.
“It is a boat.”
“Came right from the north. Right through the rock, like a ghost.”
A chill went down Ambria’s spine, but it had nothing to do with the thought of ghosts. Only one kind of ship was supposedly able to pass through the sprawling semicircle of rock along the coast.
“Pirates?”
Eldiana shook her head. “Boat’s too small. And they’d never dare to attack the capital’s harbor. This is no raid.”
“A request for amnesty, then?” It wasn’t unheard of for desperate men to appear on Wallcoast’s shores looking for mercy, though to Ambria’s knowledge none had found any. The city’s guards had a strict policy concerning the treatment of pirates.
“Perhaps.” Eldiana stepped back from the wall and stretched her bad leg with a grimace, supporting her weight with the staff. “Whatever the case, the guards will handle it. We should leave. Let them do their work.”
Before she even realized she was doing it, Ambria shook her head. “I want to go see.”
Eldiana looked less surprised than Ambria felt.
“As your bodyguard, I have a responsibility to keep you safe,” she lectured. “Letting you run off to talk with pirates of unknown motivation seems like it would be taking that responsibility and using it to rub the mud off my shoes.”
“Who said I wished to speak with them?” Ambria asked. “I only want to see. And wouldn’t it be just as irresponsible to dismiss the threat entirely?” A few of the watchmen listening in chuckled.
The limber old woman raised an eyebrow. “Even if I go investigate, that doesn’t mean your presence is necessary.”
Ambria clasped her hands together. “I just want to see.”
She really wanted to see. She hadn’t met anyone from far-off lands since her father’s death. She missed the strange clothes, the odd foods, the unfamiliar habits and ways of speaking. At least pirates would be something different.
“You’ll stand back,” Eldiana said. “Far back.”
She nodded and hurried toward the carved steps down to the beach, before Eldiana changed her mind.
“Ambria, slow down!” Eldiana cursed under her breath. “This leg of mine…”
Coarse sand crunched beneath Ambria’s feet, tiny shells cracking under her shoes.
She picked her way along the beach, trying to hold down her rebelling hair. A small cluster of soldiers were already present, turning to nod respectfully as she approached, not that she deserved it. Any respect they had for her was because of her father, not anything she’d done.
“Miss Goodhost,” one said in greeting. She responded with a dip of the head, as she’d been taught, before she stared out at the boat. It was closer. Much closer. And definitely not very big. No wonder it had taken so long to spot it, especially with the sky as overcast as it was.
“Pirates?” she asked.
“Seems likely enough,” a soldier answered. “You may want to step back when we bring her in.”
She nodded and retreated a few steps. Eldiana joined her a moment later, glaring, but standing just as tall as any of the uniformed men. Soon the boat was close enough that four of the soldiers waded into the surf and approached the vessel.
It wasn’t a ship meant for long distances. Just a little dinghy, really, riding low in the water under the weight of crates, and heavy blankets of animal skin, and a knobby little man with a poxed face and not much hair on his scalp.
He raised an oar to the soldiers like a nobleman making a toast, and it wavered a bit as he teetered back and forth in his seat. “Now then, gents, be careful with me lovely!” Ambria could only assume that he was speaking of his abused little craft.
“Landed on the fine shores of Wallcoast, then, have I?” The pirate grinned. What few teeth he had were an awful shade of yellow. “Good, good, good!” His bloodshot eyes focused on Ambria and Eldiana. “And this is the welcoming committee? Two lovely women of the highest caliber, along with a fine bunch of strapping young gentlemen, all come to bid me good fortune?” He let loose a great, honking laugh, apparently unaware he was the only one who found any humor in the words.
The men hauled the dinghy up onto the beach, and it settled with a scraping cry of distress. The pirate staggered, nearly losing the oar as his other hand jerked into the air and sloshed the contents of the bottle he held. That struck him as funny, too.
“I’ll need to see--” He paused, a cloud of confusion rolling across his face. “Somebody. Yes. I’ll need to see somebody important, right away. Ya’ see, I’ve got some cargo with me what needs to be seen to. Matter of fact, why not send the women over to see to ‘em? They seem like the right ones for the job!” He laughed again.
Ambria felt her mask of calm crack. Disgusting. I take it back. Pirates aren’t the ‘different’ I was looking for. She might’ve thought they pulled him from an alehouse in the slums, had she not known better.
“Still want to see?” Eldiana asked wearily.
A twinge of irritation fixed the mask back into place. Ambria nodded.
“Lucky for you lot I lost favor with my captain,” the knobby man said grandly, raising his hands high and spilling more of his drink. “Now that I’m looking for some lodgings that are more… landish, I’m willing to part with some valuable information.” He hiccupped. “Information about an unheard of country – that nobody’s heard of! Beyond the Sea Wall, and the sillyswimmers’ stones. Off at the tip of the world!”
Ambria blinked. A new country?
Eldiana shook her head. “He’s a raving drunk. Come, Ambria.”
“Just one more minute,” she said softly.
“The tip of the world!” he said again, eyes closed. Either he was picturing it, or he was on the verge of passing out. “Full of the finest craftsmen you’ve ever seen! The most beautiful cities, built of ice and snow! The most beautiful women!” He doubled over, laughing so hard he couldn’t continue.
There was a clatter as someone else came down the stairs to the beach. Someone in a hurry. Captain Gorrom stalked past Ambria, sword drawn. Before she could even piece together what it was that he was going to do, he dragged the man out of the boat and threw him down onto the sand.
“For crimes of piracy against the nation of Wallcoast, you have been sentenced to death,” the captain said with a face of stone.
“Look away, Ambria,” Eldiana whispered.
She couldn’t have obeyed even if she’d wanted to. It was over too fast. The man’s honking laugh ended too suddenly, cut off by steel severing his vocal cords, along with the rest of his thin, knobby neck. The taste of melon and bile rose up in Ambria’s throat as she turned away. Captain Gorrom used a handkerchief to wipe off his blade, frowning.
“I despise pirates,” he drawled, and many of his men nodded sagely. Fury stirred the contents of Ambria’s stomach as she tried not to think about what she’d just witnessed.
“You-” she stammered, fixing her eyes on the captain’s face so she wouldn’t have to look at the body, or the blood, or… “What have you done?”
“Carried out his sentence,” he said simply.
“In front of her?” Eldiana said, folding her arms.
“You know as well as I do that any pirate who dares set foot on our shores consigns himself to immediate death,” Captain Gorrom replied.
True enough. But that didn’t make it any less awful, nor did it remove the smell of blood from the air. Calm yourself, Ambria. Calm. Hide the discomfort. She forced the mask back into place. Like father always said. You’ll see worse, in a barbaric nation, or during a time of war. Just stay calm. She focused on the smell of the sea, and Eldiana’s perfume of Inuatine spices.
“Take his cargo,” Captain Gorrom said to his soldiers. “Take anything valuable – chances are, he stole it from us in the first place – and clean it well. Burn what’s left. I don’t want any of their parasites making their way into our population.”
“We could’ve at least questioned him,” Ambria muttered, crossing her arms in front of her churning stomach. “About this ‘nation’ he spoke of.”
“You believe him?” The captain laughed. “He probably recognized that ambassador’s mantle of yours and picked the lie he thought would let him live the longest. How many of our men do you think he’s gutted without a second thought?”
Ambria pulled the short indigo cloak closer around herself and pressed her lips into a thin line. “But-”
“Oh.” A soldier’s startled utterance broke into the argument. He clutched the animal skin he’d picked up, staring at what rested in the bottom of the boat. “C-captain Gorrom? You’d best see this.”
Ambria rushed forward to look along with all the others gathered on the beach. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
There, sleeping among the furs, lay two perfect children. Not from Wallcoast, and definitely not from the pirates.
