Fasili slumped against a plant box. Little white crocus buds were ready to bloom in time for winter. But as he leant over to take in their perfume, a horrid screech frayed his nerves.
"Pasha!" squealed the Zuli girl. Her little feet pattered over the cobbles, dodging every crack between them with a gait as awkward as a new-born foal.
"Nuru." Fasili tsked and idly plucked a few buds from the planter. "I need your Papa's boat. And how sneaky are you?"
She snapped off some extra flowers for his bunch. "God doesn't—"
"You're too young to worry about what He doesn't like. Make up for it when you're old."
"I can sneak, Pasha."
"Have you ever worked in a bathhouse?" Ulaf was saying to Mustafa on his return. His arm had moved from the eunuch's shoulders to the small of his back.
"The harem bathhouse and sometimes I visit Paja's to listen to viziers' gossip. Why, Effendi?"
"Know much about massages? I've had a terrible—"
"We've got some extra help," Fasili said before they rushed to sucking each other's tonsils out. "This is Nuru."
"You're wearing the wrong hat," she snapped at Ulaf.
"You recognise me without it?"
"Yes. You're Fasili Pasha's tall guard." Her frown passed over to Mustafa, then up to Fasili. "You aren't going to force Papa back to Zuleya are you?"
"No, you're to stay in Subajan for this," Fasili said. "But I need that silk, so don't tempt me."
"I can see why Fasili Pasha likes you," Mustafa said, as unimpressed with her as she was with him. "Where are your manners?"
She pouted and looked to Fasili for support, which he refused to give. "I'll make up for it when I'm old."
The little devil.
"Don't take advice from the Pasha or you will have to make up for a lot when you're old. Why do you think he always looks so tired?" The cutting remarks earned Mustafa more points with the captain, and the damned eunuch could tell. He drew himself up, as confident as anyone who knew they had a lover on the hook. The introduction had been a terrible mistake.
"If I look tired, you're not doing your job well enough," Fasili hissed, feeling the burden of a bag of bricks under each eye but there was no time for restorative mud before the night's outing.
"You wake Fasili Pasha every day? You should let him sleep in sometimes so he's not so grumpy."
"The Pasha could sleep all day for a year and he would still be grumpy."
"Of course he would be if you didn't wake him up for a whole year," Nuru fired back with a roll of her eyes.
"You have met your match, Mustafa. And we must call the whole plan off. I've not had time—"
"Stop worrying, you're still a fine man under there," Ulaf said and split from Mustafa to urge Fasili along to the docks.
He couldn't keep himself away when the masts came into view. Countless ships swayed at their moorings. From simple fishing boats, to the ugliest hulks and sleek xebecs. Merchants and states alike adorned the port with their best. Laden with treasures from every land across the sea, they begged to be raided.
Merosa's contribution to the vista stood out in a coat of gold frills. But it must have stung to have only the second largest ship in port. A galleon from Relais floated proudly beside it, and likely with no business in Subajan beyond delivering that insult.
As Fasili and company sauntered along for a bit of reconnaissance, the sweet tune of Merosans and Relish exchanging spit and bile rose above the din of labourers and fruit hawkers. He gnawed a lip and considered the suitability of Relais' mast as a laundry line.
It might start a war. But it would not be with Khasuk.
If Fasili didn't get himself caught.
Nuru was exchanging raspberries with just the sort of Merosan lad he needed for the job.
The boy was mocking her from atop a coil of rope with a slice of halva.
"¿Eso es tuyo?" Fasili growled. He was terribly out of practice with the language, so he hoped some aggressive looming would help get his meaning across.
"No, señor—er..." he replied and smartly deposited the sweet into Fasili's open palm. Nuru made a grab at it, but he lifted it from her reach. Then, he removed his mask and took a big bite.
Nuru's cheeks puffed up and she stomped his toes. Fortunately, he was not in his sandals. The cover of his slippers and socks absorbed what damage she tried to inflict.
"Stealing from children as well?" Mustafa hissed in his ear and stomped his foot harder.
"It was already stolen." Fasili winced and passed the remainder to Ulaf.
The captain wounded him by dividing it in two. He kept half for himself and gave the other portion to the spiteful eunuch. Which he then split and handed to the children. So, Ulaf cut his again and poked a large crumb under Mustafa's mask.
The eunuch excused himself to a nook between some crates and discreetly blew it out of his nose.
"¿Eso es tuyo?" Fasili whispered and pointed his thumb at the ship.
The lad nodded and jumped off his perch. He tried to slip away with only a pathetic apology muttered under his breath. Ulaf cut him off with a gentle, but threatening stroll.
"¿Sabes dónde guarda el embajador...sus calzas?" Fasili planted a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"¿Las...calzas...del Señor de Baradoz?" he replied with a doubtful frown.
"Sì. Calzas." Not quite the word he was going for, but the ambassador's hose would surely lead to his intimates.
"That's our man." Ulaf's fingers tapped the jewelled hilt hanging from his belt.
"S-sì." The boy gulped and nodded sensibly.
A congested chest cough came from someone behind them. "Pardon me, is this—"
"Hello, my friend!" Mustafa swooped in from his snot-spot and carried the man away. "I know a Prince from Işar and he has some gold but he cannot get it through this port..."
Before any more interruptions came their way, Fasili heaved the boy up by the collar and swung him up under his arm. He was deceptively heavy, and the flailing limbs made carrying him sideways the safest option.
"Are you mad?" Ulaf shrieked and drew more attention to him than the screaming child already had.
"If I leave him there, he'll run off."
"He stole from Subajan," Nuru said and gave him a jab in the rib. "Pasha needs to cut off his fingers."
"I won't go that far if he helps me relocate some things from his friends." Fasili laughed and patted her little head. "Robas a tus amigos, y no te quitaré los dedos. ¿De acuerdo?"
"No! Pirata!"
Despite the tone, Fasili took that as an affirmative and dispersed the stares with an authoritative wave. "¿Tus dedos o tu lengua?"
That shut him up. And when the lad stopped kicking, Fasili let him walk on his own. He slouched and sniffled in an utterly miserable display. Tears would cloud his vision, so Fasili begrudgingly relieved a passing peddler of three more halva pieces.
"Did you pay for those?" Ulaf asked, holding the children apart. The boy blamed Nuru for his apparent ill-treatment, but they forgot their differences when each had food stuck in their faces.
"Palace expenses. Under recruitment fees. He'll be one of yours after this." Fasili couldn't tell if Ulaf was glowering from having such a disagreeable boy thrown into his barracks, or if he was angry that he didn't get a slice. But if he had a piece, it would have gone up Mustafa's nose again. "Would you prefer I give him to his captain for a lashing?"
"That's not how it works. You can't just abduct boys off the streets and dump them on the corps."
"Really?" Fasili said, licking his fingers. "I thought that was precisely how that worked. He might be a country bumpkin for all I know, if that's the issue here. A Merosan one is as good as any other."
"A country bumpkin!" Ulaf cried with full melodramatics. "You think we're all bumpkins?"
"You've been here long enough that you've grown out of your rustic charm," Fasili said with a reassuring smile that was entirely obscured behind his mask, thus giving no reassurance to either of them.
"You've still got ample rustic charm, Effendi," Mustafa said as he rejoined them. "Unlike Fasili Pasha who has little charm of any sort left."
"You find my charm rustic?"
"You are a Rus, aren't you?"
By God did Ulaf cackle his head off at that terrible joke.
Mustafa silenced the captain with a sliced orange. "And you're kidnapping children now, Pasha?"
"He was already kidnapped. Probably. Children don't come out of the sea." Fasili encouraged the boy to start walking again with a prod of his cane. The fishing boat Nuru's parents had made into their floating home was not much farther. Quaint, and as rustic as Ulaf with its chipped layers of paint and barnacle-bedizened hull.
The sort of boat Prospero would have picked over all others in port.
"Mustafa told me you did the same to him. Nabbed him from his nabbers," Ulaf said in thought and custard. "Apparently got a nice pair of shoes for him."
"Seems like a good deal to me," Fasili muttered, wondering if the shoes in question had lasted as long as the eunuch.
"The Sultan's shoes, Pasha. So you could feed them to a pet crocodile," Mustafa informed him flatly.
Those shoes. For commandeering a ship packed with eunuchs, each worth their weight in gold, Fasili had been generous in only demanding the slippers as payment. Nibbles had choked on them, but he made a nicer pair of shoes in the end.
Valiente had laughed at that, too.
"Then sold himself for the shirt, şalvar and kaftan, Effendi."
He exhaled. Valiente got the best deal, but he wouldn't accept the one-night-only terms. So, his red-bearded captain's fate had been sealed without stupid young Fasili realising. "Enough of that. I'm sure in time the lad will be as happy here as any of us."
Nuru, the happiest of all, scuttled ahead and leapt into her mother's arms. The woman's bright smile flashed for a moment, but her lips tightened into a hard line with Fasili's approach.
Neither the deck nor its passenger showed signs of improvement despite promises made by Nuru's father. Her mother spared Fasili only a resigned scoff, released Nuru and sauntered back into the cabin. She oozed into a battered old chair that marked their long past fortune.
"You are here to take our boat, Pasha?" she said, pressing her fingers into her temples.
Mustafa clicked his tongue and extended a hand. She shook it loosely.
"May I?" he asked and gently pinched her shoulders.
"I can't afford it."
"Fasili Pasha will pay, Hatun."
"Make it a full service, and you may call me Tishala."
The eunuch obliged on that golden note. His eyes darted to meet Ulaf's with every rumble of tension-easing pleasure. It was like Tishala was melting in his hands, while the captain melted into the wall he was awkwardly leaning against, too tall to fully extend himself under the low ceiling.
"Look, Mama! We kidnapped a thief!" Nuru presented the boy to her mother, eyes twinkling over a wide grin.
"Kidnapped? What are you encouraging the girl to do now, Pasha?" Nuru's mother lifted an eyelid and groaned. "Please offer our guests some tea, Nuru."
"Never mind him, he'll be a Janissary in a few years. But I will have to move your boat as a warning to your husband."
"I'm in no position to stop you, Pasha," she said with a purr as her scalp was massaged.
With her blessing, Fasili dipped his head to Ulaf and went to release the moorings.
As the boat began to drift free, a cry like a wounded seagull brought Ulaf's rope wrangling to a halt.
"Wait, Pasha!" Mehmet's stout legs pounded the cobbles as he thundered along the docks towards them. A swinging tin of paint threatened any kneecaps that crossed his path and a cloud of mustard yellow wool billowed from under his armpit.
"Oh, pooh. Let him on," Fasili grumbled and gestured for Ulaf to pull them into the dock.
"Pasha, I promise I have not touched a drop of coffee for a week." Mehmet passed the paint and armpit bundle across the watery gap to Ulaf, then propelled himself aboard. His chest shuddered with the bark of a smoker's cough. Each gasp provoked another until the appearance of Tishala forced him to straighten up and contain himself.
The pathetic merchant snatched his woolen tangle from Ulaf's hands and thrust them towards his wife with a husky whimper. She unraveled a new dolaman and kissed his cheek with a faint smile.
Nuru tottered out after her mother, holding a tray of teacups. Her brow crease deepened when she saw the paint. "We don't have to fix the boat anymore, Papa. Pasha is taking it."
"I'm afraid you're keeping it. For now." Fasili shook off the sting of disappointment. "But I will need you to shift it for diplomatic reasons."
"I will not ask questions, Pasha." Mehmet nodded quickly and helped Ulaf push off.
"You have at least half a wit then," Fasili replied.
Under the blazing orange of the evening sky, they cruised across the harbour. Barely a bit of rubble adrift to larger ships, they were free to slip quietly between the Merosan and Relish galleys.
Fasili threw back the still-scalding tea and stripped to his under layers, ready for the brisk swim ahead. He lost the turban as well, but knotted his hair to give it a shorter, Merosan, look.
"I hope you have spare towels," he said, peering up from the deck. The angle made it impossible to tell which wall of wood was whose. Until the lad spat and cursed at one, marking it as Relais'. Fasili dragged him to the rear deck and took the plunge.
COLD.
Bone-jarring, icy cold water. Filled with jellies. Big, stingy ones.
...and the boy couldn't swim.