The Wind Daughter had once been an ordinary cargo galley, Farek learned. It had two masts sporting enormous sails, rowing lanes to seat 32 men, and a vast cargo deck at water’s level. Now Daughter was fit with a ram, there were disassembled walls and ladders for archery towers running along the center of the rower’s deck, and three aisles of bunks had replaced any empty cargo space. Farek, Erril, and Archpriest Hartho were given small cabins facing the hull on the top deck, but their guards each took opposing aisles in the cargo deck.
That first night, Farek had tossed and turned, unable to get to sleep due to the muffled sounds of conversation. It seemed that Hartho had not trusted the Noressi crew or the delegates on board, and had spent that first night passing the hours in dry conversation with some of his subordinates. Then, with guards posted at his door, Hartho had slept most of the next day.
After a few late evenings that followed his trend of paranoid behavior, the Archpriest of the Sage’s Creed finally resumed a normal schedule. Farek never left his quarters during the night, so he could not be certain if Hartho had grown to trust his hosts or had decided to command his men to observe nightly shifts at the exterior of his cabin.
Soon into the first moon of the new year, Farek passed the time playing cards with Matek. Sometimes, sailors of the Wind Daughter’s crew would offer some coin to get into the game, but the captain, a black man with a nose the size of a parrot and a few fishing scars, worked them to exhaustion to keep his ship in tip-top shape. After all, his passengers were representatives of the Matriarchs.
The Matriarchs was a lie now for it should have been singular. Though they knew what had transpired in Squora, all the guards on board Wind Daughter were under strict orders either from Lord Gallendris or Archpriest Hartho to hold their tongues.
Farek lost his third hand and pushed his lost coins across the table with a sigh. “Your wit was certainly not affected.”
“I’m glad,” Matek said, grinning. His visible eye winked at Farek and he started collecting his winnings. “Gambling with you, sir, is the reason I keep this job. Pays better than any other posting I’ve had.”
“Now, that’s enough,” Farek retorted, playfully. “I think you ought to take Ayvim off duty.”
Matek’s mirthful expression soured. He pocketed his coin pouch and stood up dutifully. “I hate watching the old man. All he does is shit, curse, weep, and sleep.”
“Matek,” Farek reprimanded.
His friend cleared his throat and walked off. Farek knew he meant his remarks mostly in jest, though there was a grain of truth to it. Watching Polanar was as horrid a task as guarding Haladia’s corpse.
Farek caught Hartho watching him as he stood up from the crate on which he had been sitting. The Archpriest was a fifty-year-old man and wore his sandy-grey hair in a bun behind his head. He had an uncorked canteen in his hand and raised it to Farek as a sort of toast before turning his eyes along the faraway ocean horizon. Farek suddenly had another thought for the Sage’s strange behaviours; Hartho may have been keeping such late hours in an attempt to enjoy his last few days, if he thought death awaited him in Noress.
It was up to Farek and Erril to make sure that that was not the case.