“Use Amapola’s thread and put in more stitches,” I said.
The Eagle was still moving, allowing me to speed up the motion, but the Red Lion was getting closer. Even with enhancing, they were catching up. If they caught us, they would kill us. I noticed the second sail was torn, but the Red Lion was close enough that I recognized Kalten standing menacingly onboard, sword in hand at the bow. A man next to him was shooting arrows at us, but they missed the Eagle. I was grateful Merko didn’t include archery in his training program.
But as we got closer, the arrows might hit. Even a hit to the sail would hurt us. Roddy brought a torrent down on the Red Lion. It only slowed them a little.
“If someone can light a fire, I can burn them,” I said. Merko wanted me to burn a ship and I refused. To escape, I was willing to burn the attacking ship, although I resolved to see if I could save us by just concentrating on the sails.
“There’s neither flint nor fuel onboard,” Jerot said. “I don’t think we have time to rub two sticks together.”
Finally, the mainsail was mended, but they were getting closer. Roddy and Vlid were frantically putting it up. I continued moving the Eagle but was getting tired. Trying to get maximum speed out of the Eagle with the waves and wind was difficult.
I watched the Red Lion, and when a wave hit it, I moved the archer’s bow in the direction the ship was moving, and the archer lost the bow overboard, nearly falling in after it. One threat was eliminated, but the distance was still closing.
When the sail was finally up, the Red Lion was within yards of us. Two men jumped down from their bow to our stern, and I enhanced the jump of one of them, so he crashed onto the deck with force. Roddy stabbed the other one before he recovered from his landing. Vlid picked up the sailor who fell hard and threw him overboard. The man’s sword was on our deck and Vlid grabbed it. Roddy and Jerot were already armed.
Before the fight was finished, Jerot said to me, “I’m going to move to starboard suddenly. When I say ‘now,’ move us as hard as you can to starboard. When I say ‘switch,’ move the Red Lion as hard as you can to port. Speed her up in that direction so she goes away from us. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I said, praying that it would work.
“Now.”
I put all my enhancing into turning us. Lina started to fall, and Roddy caught her.
“Switch.”
I did so. Two men who were poised to jump on the Eagle fell. One managed to grab the railing but Vlid’s sword took care of him. The Eagle turned quickly, but the Red Lion took a long time to turn.
Watching her, Jerot said, “It worked.”
“What worked?” I asked.
“Vlid made some modifications to the Red Lion’s rudder. He had to do it at night, underwater. He must have dived in twenty or more times, but she’s a bit slower to turn. I suspect this is the first time that Merko noticed the difference.”
Vlid and Roddy picked up the pirate Roddy stabbed and threw him overboard.
They were still visible on the horizon when Jerot called for mending the other sails. Amapola took the sleeves off Milea’s nightgown and used them. The mainsail was taken down and the repairs were reinforced. Even though the Red Lion was getting closer, Jerot didn’t seem worried.
“Get some sleep,” he told me. “We’ll wake you if we need you, but you look exhausted.”
I obeyed. Before I fell asleep, I replayed Milea’s nakedness in my mind, and realized something that hadn’t reached my consciousness before. She was pregnant.
CHAPTER 12
It was late afternoon when I awoke and looked around the cabin. It was a rich man’s yacht with comfortable cabins, but very little space for cargo. I went on the deck and found a good-looking stranger wearing Vlid’s clothes on deck. No, it wasn’t a stranger. It was Vlid. He shaved both his beard and head, but had a colorful scarf covering his head.
Milea was wearing her sleeveless nightgown that now only came down to the middle of her thighs, under a cloak I recognized as Roddy’s. I handed Milea a bundle of clothing. “I don’t think anyone else has anything that fits you.”
“Thank you,” she said. She disappeared below to change.
“Thank you,” Vlid said quietly to me while he handed me some hardtack. We wouldn’t be eating as well as we did at the Lodge. I sat on the deck and chewed the food, grateful for the cup of water Roddy handed me.
Milea returned, with Little Vlid at her side, thanking Roddy for the use of the cloak and commenting that she put it with his belongings. I knew someone had to find Milea some decent clothing and since neither my mother nor I were particularly good seamstresses, erring on the side of making dresses that were generously cut, I knew my clothing would have to do. Amapola wore dresses that hugged her barely existent curves and Lina wore dresses with all the style of sacks but was thin enough that I didn’t think Milea could wear anything of hers.
We were all on deck when Jerot addressed us. “I think it’s time for a few rules. Every ten minutes, someone looks every direction. Everyone takes a shift, except Heleen.”
“I can do my share,” I said.
“You’ve done more than your share. But I don’t want you overly tired, in case we need you again. You are going to stay fed and rested. I want everyone else to learn how to handle the Eagle. Also, everyone practices working with every other person. If someone is incapacitated, the others should be able to take over.” He glanced at Lina. I wondered what was wrong with her.
“What happened to Lina?” I asked.
“I got seasick. I think I’m all right now,” she said.
That was odd. When we traveled through the storm on the Bat Bell, she was fine.
“We’re not going to try to make progress at night unless we’re running from someone,” Jerot continued. “There are too many ways to get into trouble then, and we have no lights and no heat.”
“Did Merko remove those supplies?” Roddy asked Jerot.
“Yes. We’re lucky I was able to keep food on board, but there’s no water.”
“Just an empty keg,” Roddy said with a smile. The lack of water would stop any reasonable escape attempt, but Roddy could supply us with as much as we needed.
“I don’t know anything about ships,” Amapola said.
“I’ll teach you. But mainly you’ll be the one to look for other ships. If you see a ship, any ship, let Roddy, Vlid, or me know. Day or night. We run from everyone. Merko may not look for us anymore, but if he finds us, he’ll kill all of us.”
Amapola shuddered and moved a bit closer to Jerot.
I believed him, but unlike Amapola, I didn’t think Jerot would be much protection from Merko and his men.
Roddy took the helm and Jerot showed the best way to look for other ships. There was a place near one mast where it was possible to stand a little higher than on the deck. Common sense said that the higher you were, the further you saw, but he made Amapola, Lina, and Milea try it.
“Even if we don’t recognize a ship, it might be hostile. By now, Merko could have captured another ship.”
Would they have done it that fast? Probably not, but I didn’t want to bet my life on it.
“We’re headed to Lagudia,” Jerot continued. “It’s a big port city we can disperse from there. It would be safest for you to head inland.”
I noticed Jerot said “you,” not “us.” “You’re not going inland?”
“No. A member of the city council of Lagudia wanted me to find out about these pirates. He’s probably given up on me, but he planned to arrange an expedition to the pirates’ lair, if I could give him the location.”
This surprised me. Jerot seemed to fit in so well with the pirates. If I thought at all about his joining our escape, I would have assumed he was tired of being a pirate. I wondered that Vlid trusted him. Did Vlid know he wasn’t what he pretended to be? He certainly hadn’t let me know that, but he fooled me from the beginning about what kind of person he was.
“How long have you
been with Merko?”
I think he sensed I wanted more information than I asked for, because his answer explained a lot. “More than a year. And yes, it’s been that long since I’ve been in a port where I could disappear. I’ve always stayed with the ship when they attacked anyone or visited towns. I had others buy things for me. I told Merko I was wanted in a few places when he hired me. Actually, I didn’t want to be recognized as a successful ship’s captain. I think I would have gone ashore if I thought I could make it to Lagudia quickly enough, but…. Well, now is the time.”
“How did you rise in ranks so quickly?” I asked.
“Seamanship. Merko uses his magic to avoid storms, but early on, I demonstrated I was better at handling a ship during a storm. I’ve been on ships since I was eleven, and on fishing boats before that. A lot of pirates are sailors, but usually, they’re not good sailors.”
I wondered about the qualifications for being a pirate. Merko would certainly be wary of random strangers, but they had to recruit some of the time.
“Are you from Lagudia?” Amapola asked.
“I’m from Fainting Goat Island originally, but I called Lagudia home for fifteen years. A ship went to Fainting Goat Island to pick up Vlid as well as trade. It never returned. I suspected the pirates were on Fainting Goat Island, but no one would send an expedition until they were reasonably certain.”
“Both of you lived off the island?” I said.
Jerot and Vlid exchanged an amused glance, and Milea also smiled. “I think you need to know a little more about our religion,” Vlid said. “Ezant puts a condition on enhancing: you have to use it in an ethical manner. Our goddess, Goa, puts a condition on our magic: one parent has to be born off the island.”
“Why?” I asked. That seemed like an odd condition. After all, one didn’t have any control over where one was born, much less of where their parents were born.
“Inbreeding,” Vlid said. “The islanders are all pretty closely related.”
“Jerot is your cousin,” I suddenly realized.
“Yes,” Vlid said. “A brother and sister went to Lagudia. The brother, who was my father, wanted to bring back a bride, which can’t always be done. The sister, Jerot’s mother, just wanted to get pregnant, which is usually easier. My mother was the daughter of a ship builder and fell in love with my father. She kept in touch with her brother, who lives in Lagudia. My father and aunt stayed long enough that Jerot’s father knew he fathered a child. When Jerot was eleven, his father arranged for him to be a cabin boy for a good captain. Jerot got good training and never intended to return to Fainting Goat Island.”
“And you?” I asked. Considering how silent Vlid was before, I found his talkativeness surprising. I didn’t know if he was making up for lost time or this was normal for him.
“My uncle arranged a job for me in his shipyard. I also never planned to live on Fainting Goat, but I went for a visit.”
“And the pirates came,” I said.
“They came the night of Goa’s Request,” Vlid said. “It’s an annual ceremony where everyone at the Lodge attends a big party, gets very drunk, and then they create an earthquake. My brother was supposed to be the one to make the earthquake. Only Little Vlid wanted to visit Whelia, who recently married Artdon. She used to work in the Lodge and helped care for him. Neither Milea nor I were interested in a drunken party. We went to Goat Island. Only the earthquake never came.”
“Eventually, we got news,” Milea said. “They killed everyone in the Lodge. My husband, my daughter, my parents, my older brother and sister. Everyone. Even children. They wanted no one left to avenge themselves on the pirates.” I lost my parents, but still had Roddy. I tried to imagine losing so many people I cared about and couldn’t. I wondered how she could sleep with Merko, who murdered her family.
“But they seem so reasonable,” Amapola said. “They’re fair. They help each other. They’re friendly.”
No one said anything. The wolf in his den probably doesn’t seem fierce or dangerous when not threatened. Merko and his pirates acted civilized. A horrible thought occurred to me after hearing all the people Merko killed. “Did Merko set the fire that killed my parents?” I asked Jerot.
“No. He killed your parents and then set the fire,” Jerot said. “He killed your father with a blow to the head and he smothered your mother. He then lit the fire. He bragged about it to me afterward.” He looked at me steadily, almost daring me to condemn him.
“Yes, I worked for him,” Jerot said. “I’ve done terrible things and helped a man who lives by theft. He kills casually, whenever it suits him. There aren’t very many enhancers around and most of them are valued. He wanted one, which is why he came to Ship Town.”
And I helped him too. I supported his cause. I should have killed all of his pirates, not the Rocky Coast Pirates. I turned to Vlid. “Did you know? Did you know when you told me which side to support? Did you know I was saving the man who killed my parents?” If I hadn’t supported his men, Merko might have died. His side might have lost. No, that wasn’t fair. Most of the Rocky Coast Pirates were killed by Vlid, when he unleashed the volcano.
“Yes,” Vlid said. “I knew.” I gave him an angry look. He held my gaze until I looked away. How dare he act as if he did nothing wrong.
Jerot said evenly, “I need you to help me head east, or we’ll never get to Lagudia.”
“I can’t work with you,” I told him.
“Yes, you can. You have to, or we may all die. Then no one will know where the pirates live. They will continue to kill people.”
“The lessor of two evils,” Vlid said.
“Is still evil,” I replied bitterly.
“But your god believes you did the ethical thing,” Vlid pointed out.
“But I didn’t,” Lina said. “I killed people to save the pirates, knowing what they were.”
“So did I,” whispered Amapola.
How many of us were guilty of murder? I helped the pirates kill, which made me guilty. Lina and Amapola killed directly as Jerot certainly did.
“I helped them twice,” Roddy said, echoing my thoughts. “I wasn’t sure they were pirates the first time and knew it the second time. I guessed they might be pirates before I got on the ship. I just wasn’t certain enough to try to stop you,” he said, looking at me. He looked guilty, but how could he know they were pirates? They traded, and they brought women with them.
“We could sit here and wallow in guilt, but it will accomplish nothing,” Vlid said.
“Milea, you will be on watch for the next two hours,” Jerot said, deliberately ending the conversation. “There’s an hourglass in the cabin. Turn it over and make sure you look around six times for one complete emptying of the hourglass. Repeat it for a second hour and then tell Amapola that it is her turn to do the same thing. Heleen, you need to speed us up, but go a little to port.”
How could he calmly give us orders when so much had been revealed? But I obeyed. Why not? But Jerot and I didn’t exchange any words that didn’t relate to the ship. I cried, and he ignored it. I wasn’t certain if I was crying in anger or in grief. I was so lost in thought that Jerot had to remind me to enhance many times. He always knew when I stopped.
Vlid killed more people than any of us, and I suspect he felt guilty, but he shouldn’t, judging by the arrows in the back of the two people we saw on Goat Island.
When Lina replaced Amapola on watch, Jerot told me to get some food and rest. I was surprised I slept as well as I did, but weeks of insufficient sleep finally caught up with me.
Vlid often wore a scarf on his lower face during part of the day. “Why do you wear that?” I asked him after several days. Vlid took the helm, and I enhanced, although Roddy was also on duty. There was a good breeze and it was clear enough that we could see no ships were in sight.
“Sunburn. I don’t like wearing a beard in the summer and I want my face to look like I haven’t been wearing one,” he replied. He didn’t like a beard? Considering
the size and bushiness of the beard he wore, that must have made him unhappy.
“You want your face brown, not red and peeling?”
“Yes.” He pulled off his scarf, showing me a reddish tan face, recently shaved. His hair was starting to grow out.
Sometime later, I asked him, “Why did you turn your back on Merko when he was questioning me?”
“For the same reason I gave him back his sword. I couldn’t have killed him there, unarmed. I know it doesn’t make sense, since a short time later, I probably killed sixty or more Rocky Coast Pirates.” I understood. It was easier to kill at a distance.
“Merko imagines himself as some kind of gentleman pirate,” Vlid continued. “He wants people to think he won’t kill if people surrender to him. Once I had his sword, I thought it through and realized he wouldn’t kill you, which meant I was safe if I gave him back his sword. Killing me would spoil his image.”
Because I would tell the others if he killed Vlid. “You created the earthquake when he was questioning me?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“But your back was to him,” I protested. “You couldn’t have known when to create the earthquake the second and third times.”
“I only did the first one. Jerot did the other two.”
“You knew he would protect you.”
“I certainly hoped he would.”
It would take iron nerve to turn his back on Merko. But I wondered about Vlid. How could he let his sister stay with Merko? How could he let her be there at all? She could stay on Goat Island and never have to be Merko’s whore.
I shocked myself by calling her that in my mind. Roddy understood why the women were there, and made it clear to me. Because of her and the other island women, Lina, Amapola, and I didn’t have to live in constant fear. I should respect her choice, even if she appeared to enjoy it.
“How did you come to pretend to be the crazy man?” I asked Vlid.
“The pirates demanded food be delivered. It’s three miles uphill from the nearest farm, and it takes more than one trip. They sent a young man at first, and they asked him to join them. When he refused, they killed him.”
The Pirates of Fainting Goat Island Page 9
