Knights of the Rose

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The onshore breeze made the breakers foam high over the bar, but the slim-hulled green ship with the three red sails easily rode over them. For one moment, her prow was pointed at the blue sky; for the next, her rudder was clear of the water.

Momentum, and skilled hands on the sheets and tiller, carried her through. Soon she was tacking out into the calm, deep water beyond the bar. The three sails became five-two square ones on each of the two foremost masts, and a triangular one in solitary splendor on the third.

Watching the ship from the balcony of her villa, Lady Eskaia told herself it was only the breeze that made her eyes water. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. Doubtless her maid would have preferred her to use a silk handkerchief, “as befits your station, my lady.”

What did a maid-who had never seen the open sea before she entered Eskaia’s service-know about her mistress’s true station? Eskaia was the daughter of a man who had sailed in his own ships when he was young, when the fortune of House Encuintras was yet building. She was the mother of two sailors-a son, apprenticed aboard that slim ship bound seaward, and a daughter, whose gift for archery had won her a spot in the armed guard of a merchantman of House Bulus.

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