Corkoran’s stomach did strange things. He looked from the steady pistols by the door to the dozen or so crossbows and pistols around the walls and felt betrayed. “I thought,” he murmured to Wermacht, “you were supposed to have put protections on the kitchens at least.”
“Nobody move, nobody try to cast a spell,” the handsome man said loudly, “and nobody need get hurt.” Wermacht, at this, made faces at Corkoran, expressing complete bewilderment that his protections had not seemed to work. Unfortunately his grimaces caught the clear blue eyes of the handsome man. “Cover those two,” he said. “Those are real wizards.”
Several pistols and two crossbows swung toward the table where Corkoran and Wermacht sat. Corkoran swallowed. Wermacht was in robes, of course, so it was obvious he was a wizard. Corkoran would have liked to think that it was his air of magical authority that caused the handsome man to know him for a wizard as well, but he feared that it was more likely that the man had recognized him from somewhere. Damn it, he knew he had seen the fellow before, if only he could place him! “Who are you?” he said. “What do you want?” His voice came out a little high, but he was relieved to hear that it was almost steady.
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me!” the handsome man said, with what Corkoran found to be a rather hideous mock sympathy. “The years must be getting to you, Corkoran. I’ve not forgotten you. Surely you remember. You and I had a little set-to over money during Chesney’s last tour. You tossed me in the sea. Olaf Gunnarsson. Remember?”
Olaf Gunnarsson. Of course! That evening on the docks nearly nine years ago that Corkoran had done his best to forget ever since, came back to him now like yesterday: the fishy smell of the Inland Sea, the screams of the circling gulls, the salt staining the wharf, everything. Everything, including the beat-up wooden ship towering against the sunset and Olaf towering in front of the ship on the wharf, aiming that very gold-inlaid pistol at the anxious tourists clustered behind Corkoran on the dock. Olaf had not been nearly so well groomed in those days. In fact, he had looked almost as beat up and ragged as that ship of his. He had terrified Corkoran. It was not his fault that someone had egged Olaf on to demand twice as much money for pretending to kidnap the tourists. But Olaf had assumed Corkoran was party to the deal. He had insisted that Corkoran was trying to pocket the extra money. Corkoran could even remember the exact insults Olaf had shouted at him and the way that Olaf’s crew, from the one-legged mate to the small cabin boy, stood in a row above them on the ship and shouted insults, too. Then Olaf had said he would shoot the tourists one by one until Corkoran paid up. Corkoran had been so terrified of what Mr. Chesney might do about that that he had hurled Olaf away with the very strongest spell he could muster and gasped at the tourists to run for their lives. It was not exactly Corkoran’s fault that the strength of his terror had caused him to overcook the spell. Olaf had gone whirling up over his ship, to land with a mighty splash in the water beyond, followed by all his crew. Corkoran could still hear the shouts and the splashes, like yesterday. And now the man seemed to have tracked him down.
“So you’re still a pirate,” he said shakily.
Olaf shook his handsome head. “Not any longer. When Chesney went, there was no profit in piracy. I’m respectable now. These days I run merchants’ protection around the Inland Sea.”
“You mean you’re a gangster now?” Corkoran said.
Wermacht stirred beside him, genuinely horrified. “Corkoran, don’t speak to him like that! Everyone knows Gunnarsson’s a very rich man.”
“Shut up,” said Olaf. “Both of you shut up. I’m not here to speak to either of you. I’m here to collect my two-timing witch of a daughter. Come on, Olga. Out of there.”
Corkoran slumped with relief. If that was all! Everyone else’s eyes turned to Olga, half hidden behind Elda’s right wing. Olga’s face had gone so white that, what with the fairness of her hair, she looked as if there were a spotlight shining on her. Corkoran remembered that cabin boy. So he had thrown Olga into the water, too, along with her father.
Olga moved her chair until she was no longer hidden by Elda. She leaned back in it and stared across at Olaf. “How did you know I was here?”
Olaf grinned, baring very white teeth. “Your precious University was kind enough to send me a request for money. Still after the money, are you, eh, Corkoran? So I brought the boys along and came to fetch you. We’ve been here two days now, staking the place out, so don’t feel you can get away. Come quietly and no one will get hurt.”
“No,” said Olga. She looked and sounded quite calm, but Elda could feel her shaking. “I’m a student now. I’m studying here.”
There was a simultaneous threatening move forward by all the men standing around the walls. Olaf held up a hand, glinting with rings and a gold bracelet, to stop them. “Now, now. This is an ancient and august institution, boys. Pretend to be civilized here at least. Olga, I came prepared to be reasonable, but if you push me, I’ll tell them all what you did. Then they’ll kick you out.”
“I didn’t do anything except what I told you I’d do,” Olga retorted. “You wouldn’t let me train as a wizard, so I arranged it for myself. As I told you I would.”
Olaf shook his golden head in mock sorrow. “Ah, Olga. Sparing with the truth. As always.” His manner changed. Suddenly and frighteningly his face flushed, particularly over his hawklike nose, and he bared his big white teeth like a skeleton’s. “You howling little witchy cow of a liar! I forbade you to leave! You disobeyed me! Me—Olaf! And on top of that, you go and raid my secret island and carry off my treasure! Don’t deny it! You did it!”
“I don’t deny it,” Olga said calmly. Lukin, who had been staring at Olaf in fascinated hatred, turned and looked at her with respect. “I did tell you I would,” Olga said. “I told you quite plainly that because you’d never given me one copper of my own all my life, I’d take what I was due. I’ve worked for you for ten years now, Dad, raising winds and raising monsters for you when you went into the protection game, for nothing, not even what you pay your crew!”
“And so a dutiful daughter should do!” Olaf yelled. “You robbed me—me, your own father!”
“I only took enough to pay my fees and to live on for three years,” Olga said. “There’s still a lot left. Haven’t you been and counted it? That’s not like you, Dad.”
“You robbed me!” Olaf howled. “That money was for my old age! The treasure was your dowry, girl!”
“Then it was mine,” Olga said.
“No, it was not!” screamed her father. “A daughter is her father’s property until he buys a husband for her. With her dowry! And you know very well, you thieving witch, that I had a husband all lined up for you until you robbed me and ran away!”
“My timing did have something to do with that, yes,” Olga agreed.
“Hark at her!” Olaf looked around the staring students as if he knew they were bound to agree with him. “Have you ever heard such ungrateful disobedience? Daughters have to do what their fathers tell them.”
“Only if the other side of the bargain is kept,” Lukin remarked.
Olaf’s glaring blue eyes, and the muzzle of his pistol, turned Lukin’s way. “What was that? Speak up, whoever you are.”
“I said”—Lukin began. He was shaking as badly as Olga—“obedience depends on—”
“He’s the Crown Prince of Luteria, Dad,” Olga cut in quickly.
“Oh. Then I shan’t shoot him through the head,” Olaf said. “Through the knee, probably, when we leave. But before that I want my money.” He pointed at Corkoran. “You. Disgorge. Give me what this ungrateful hag paid you for teaching her.”