He beat them all impartially and fat Boghaz wailed at the top of his lungs, “Mercy, oh Lady Ywain! Mercy, mercy!”
“Shut up, scum!” snarled Callus and lashed them until blood ran.
Ywain glanced down into the pit. She rapped out a name. “Callus!”
The oar-bank captain bowed. “Yes, Highness.”
“Pick up the beat,” she said. “Faster, I want to raise the Black Banks at dawn.” She looked directly at Carse and Boghaz and added, “Flog every man who loses stroke.”
She turned away. The drum beat quickened. Carse looked with bitter eyes at Ywain’s back. It would be good to tame this woman. It would be good to break her utterly, to tear her pride out by the roots and stamp on it.
The lash rapped out the time on his unwilling back and there was nothing for it but to row.
Jaxart grinned a wolf’s grin. Between strokes he panted, “Sark rules the White Sea to hear them tell it. But the Sea Kings still come out! Even Ywain won’t dawdle on the way!”
“If their enemies may be out why don’t they have escort ships for this galley?” Carse asked, gasping.
Jaxart shook his head. “That I can’t understand myself. I heard that Garach sent his daughter to overawe the subject king of Jekkara, who’s been getting too ambitious. But why she came without escort ships—”