Read Online The Dragon Round by Stephen S. Power - Free Book Online

forest warden. The warden convinced him that Everlyn, whatever her talent for sums, had a real devotion to herb­lore and healing. So her father gave Everlyn to her for schooling. She broke her slate in joy.
    â€œHow fast does the current run?” she asks.
    â€œCorrect,” Jeryon says. “Six knots. The Comber could cross it in four or five hours under full sail and oar, entering the river north of Eryn Point and letting it carry the galley down to the mouth of the bay. If we had oars to reach it, we would cross more slowly and be carried much farther south. Hopefully we’d make it to Yness before being swept to sea.”
    â€œBut we have no oars,” she says.
    â€œOr water, which makes the issue moot. We’ll be dead of thirst before we make it across.”
    â€œSo we have no chance?”
    â€œNot according to my mates’ calculations,” Jeryon says.
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    â€œWhich brings us,” Jeryon continues, “to the second thing you need to know. I will get you to Hanosh so you can testify against my crew.”
    â€œI could write it down,” she says, “and save you the trouble of saving me too.”
    â€œWe don’t have anything to write with,” he says. Jeryon reads her like a manifest: “Smock. Boots. Presumably undergarments.” She scowls. “Those sticks in your hair, let me see them,” he says. She looks skeptical. He says, “I won’t run off,” and holds out his hand.
    She draws the pair of long steel pins from her bun. Her hair unfurls. Her neck sweats. “Why do you need them?” she says.
    He tests their points, which are oddly sharp, and taps them together. Their surfaces are mottled like flowing water. “Gift from one of your company ladies?” he says. “These aren’t cheap.”
    â€œNot everything has a price,” she says.
    â€œIn Hanosh it does.” He crosses his right leg and with one of the pins worries the seam of his pant leg. He says, “I bet someone came to you for help and discovered afterward that she was also suffering from a touch of embarrassment. So she paid you with these. Her husband’s going to be very upset when he finds out. What did you palm while Solet was searching you?”
    Startled, the poth says, “You saw that?”
    â€œNever lose sight of a person’s hand,” he says. “That’s Solet’s weakness. He’s easily distracted.”
    The poth reaches into her pocket and removes a purple phial. “For cuts and burns.”
    â€œHandy, if we live long enough to be cut.” He looks at the sun. “We will be burned. Especially you.” Her upland skin is more golden than his, what the Hanoshi described in better times as “tea with honey” and now call “milky.”
    â€œThere we go.” A stitch pops and he yanks out the thread with the pin. He opens the seam and removes a steel blade, one edge straight, the other serrated, and a thin envelope the length of her pinky.
    â€œAren’t you full of surprises,” she says.
    Jeryon has such a bland face, like dough too dry and hard to be pounded, that she’s shocked to see a bit of mischief dart through his eyes.
    â€œTrust your sails, but not the wind,” Jeryon says. “And I’ve been thinking the wind was about to turn.”
    â€œDo you have an aphorism for everything?” she says. “Any port in a storm? Nodding the head won’t row the boat?”
    â€œSimple rules prevent complex problems,” he says.
    She humphs. “What’s in the envelope?”
    He unfolds it carefully. In it sits a bone needle and some red thread.
    â€œWhat’s that for? Sutures?”
    â€œDo I look like a surgeon?” he says. “It’s for fixing my pants. I can’t run around with my pants falling to pieces, can I?”
    Everlyn stifles a laugh at his serious expression.
    He threads the needle and goes to work.