The Pirates of Fainting Goat Island

by Teresa McCullough

  He let go of my hand and leaned back. “I find it very odd that Vlid told you about me. I thought he loved you.”

  “You also thought I loved Jerot,” I said.

  “I think I misinterpreted your concern for love. You are very motherly, you know.”

  Motherly? I didn’t think of myself as motherly, but I supposed I was. I supposed I was, but I was motherly toward people older than me. I realized there was one thing I hadn’t told him, so I explained about Controlling. He asked me several questions about it, wanting more detail than I knew.

  Milea came home, interrupting our conversation. After I helped her put away the food she bought, Cranket asked me to come with him. I saw Muscle waiting outside. When we started to walk, he followed us.

  Cranket saw me observe Muscle and explained. “He’s my bodyguard. I would signal him when I left the Kettle of Fish and he would leave first, then follow me. I told him he didn’t have to try so hard to be unobtrusive, since you know I’m wealthy.”

  I knew walking in Lagudia wasn’t as safe as walking in Ship Town. It never occurred to me that Cranket would take that kind of precaution.

  We went to Daton’s bank. On the way there, Cranket told me there was a one-handed beggar who would be sitting in front of the bank. “I’ll go on in ahead of you. Talk to the beggar. Give him something. You have money?” I nodded.

  The beggar was wearing pathetic rags. I asked him how he lost his hand and he told me an unlikely story that made him sound noble. Following Cranket’s instructions I gave money to the beggar. When I entered the bank, a man was waiting for me to escort me to Daton’s office. It was less impressive than the one in the Council Building. There was an ink stain on the desk and there were only a few books on the shelves. There was a portrait of his wife and children, only the children were adults in this portrait. The papers on his desk were in uneven stacks.

  “I’ve told Daton about Controlling,” Cranket said. “Would you mind demonstrating with the beggar? Just tell him beg somewhere else.”

  I did so, and the beggar left.

  When we returned to Daton’s office, Daton said, “I’ve been trying to keep him away for years. How long will he stay away?”

  “I’m not sure, but possibly until the money runs out,” I replied.

  “He’ll spend it on drink. He lost his hand by falling down drunk in front of a heavily loaded wagon,” Daton said. He looked at Cranket and said, “You’ve made a good choice.”

  What? Daton knew about Cranket’s interest in me? Was I the only one in Lagudia that didn’t know.

  “Heleen, I know you are going to get mad at me for this, but I have to ask you to repeat some of the things you told me earlier.”

  In front of a truth teller? Couldn’t he see how unreasonable it was? Even if I didn’t have the secret of my love for Vlid to conceal, it was horrible to think I would be repeatedly asked to confirm what I said. He loved me, but didn’t trust me? I was mad but decided to use it to my advantage. It was unfair of him to ask, but I felt the very unfairness of it justified deceit.

  “I won’t. I didn’t lie to you. You thought I loved Jerot and you thought I loved Vlid. I care about both men. When tending Jerot I once washed him, which gave me more intimate contact than is considered proper.” I was embarrassed remembering that, but I was the only one home and it was needed. “The only time I’ve been in Vlid’s arms was when he carried me ashore near Quarryton. Neither of us has said we love the other.” I had a moment of sadness when I realized I never would be in Vlid’s arms again.

  “But I may lie to you in the future and I may deceive you,” I continued. “I’m not perfect. I will not be forced into verifying everything with you. I will never do this again.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Daton said. “Including saying she won’t do this again.” He got up and left the two of us together. I was surprised he vacated his own office for Cranket’s benefit.

  “You said you loved me,” I told Cranket. “How could you humiliate me this way?”

  “This is the last time,” Cranket said. “I wanted to marry you before but dithered because I wasn’t certain. I always wanted children with magic but enhancing is useless.”

  “Useless?” Enhancing was one of the most useful magics there was.

  “For someone with wealth. I can hire enhancers. Controlling is very useful.”

  “I won’t be doling out money and then telling people what you want them to do,” I said. The thought horrified me.

  “I know that, but our children would have that power. Daton wanted me to wait until his granddaughter grows up and marry her, but this is better. This is no longer a question of my just fulfilling my desires. This is a dynasty!”

  He spoke about how someone could use Controlling to become richer and more powerful. In a few minutes he gave the financial and political side of Controlling more thought than I ever had. I was willing to marry Cranket for my own non-romantic reasons. I suppose I shouldn’t be insulted if he wanted to marry me for his. But I was, but not sufficiently insulted to give up on Ship Town.

  Cranket claimed he fell in love with me, but I saw more enthusiasm for my Controlling than I saw for me. Yet it was clear that he was searching for a place, a position, a meaning. He waffled from politics, to friendship, to charity, to love, and then to a dynasty. He had no need to earn a living. He was free to follow his whims. Most people didn’t have a need to find their goals, because just earning enough to live on filled all their time.

  I suppose I should be grateful that he had positive goals. How many men who weren’t yet twenty would try to do as much good as he did? Jerot had a passion for the sea and for Amapola. He was focused, as Cranket was not. But Jerot didn’t have Cranket’s wealth and was a decade older than his brother.

  “I will make a bargain with you,” he said. “I will generously fulfill all the obligations you have, including those to Vlid and Jerot, if they need help. We can’t get married immediately, since I’m not yet twenty. I think we both need time to adjust to this idea, so maybe it’s a good idea to wait.”

  “Aren’t you afraid that I will Control you at some point?”

  “Not at all,” Cranket replied. “All I have to do is give you more than you give me. That will be very easy for me. I’ve wanted to give you things for so long but knew you wouldn’t welcome gifts. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Everyone accepted our engagement without surprise. I forced myself not to look at Vlid when Cranket and I announced our engagement, so I didn’t see how he reacted to it. Roddy had a slightly troubled look in his eyes, but he said softly to me, “I think this is the right thing, girl.” To Cranket he said, “You’ll treat her right, won’t you?”

  Cranket smiled and said, “Of course.”

  The engagement didn’t interrupt our preparations. Amapola arranged to room with some girls where she worked and Vlid let our landlord know we were moving out. Whatever happened, we wouldn’t be sharing that house again. Only half of the cargo space was devoted to grain, since Vlid persisted in continuing his argument with Jerot. Vlid had a long list of potential necessities, and Cranket was willing to buy them.

  Our first goal was to stop at Lina’s hometown. Lina didn’t think that Merko would attack it. “I was very angry when Merko recruited me,” Lina explained earlier, when we were packing some things from the house. “I said things I didn’t mean. I was sorry afterward, but I hope Merko believed me.”

  “What kind of things?” I asked. I remembered she resented the town because no one would hire her after her husband died.

  “That I wished it would burn to the ground. That I wanted a plague to come and kill everyone. I hope Merko thinks he would do me a favor by attacking my town.” We grabbed opposite corners of a blanket and folded it together as we talked. “I was very ashamed I said it, but never contradicted it to Merko.” We put the blanket in the pot the Councilor bought me, which Cranket’s man retrieved from
the Kettle of Fish.

  “I resolved not to say such angry things again,” Lina said. “Roddy and I talked about it at the Lodge. He said that Merko probably found out about me because I complained.”

  The Mercy wasn’t designed for passengers. There was a cramped captain’s cabin with room for only one person. Cranket apologetically took the cabin. Gone was the luxurious privacy of the Eagle. A common area next to the galley was designed both as an eating area and a place for the crew to hang their sleeping hammocks.

  A small portion of the common area was divided off by blankets hung as curtains. Lina, Milea, and I arranged what we needed for the trip near the three hammocks hanging there. The men’s hammocks would be put away when no one was using them. When we first boarded, Little Vlid used one of the hammocks as a swing. Cranket commented to me that he didn’t bring his bodyguard, because he got terribly seasick.

  “The Mercy is a little trickier to sail than when she was the Eagle,” Jerot said. “I’m still learning her quirks. Because she’s been renamed and doesn’t look the same, Merko won’t recognize her.”

  That was a definitive statement. That was definitely a plus. She looked very different to me, but I wondered how she would look to a sailor. The fact that he wouldn’t recognize her meant that if he saw her, he was less likely to chase her. The renaming would keep Merko from hearing rumors that she was in this area.

  “But even if she isn’t a target, Merko might think she is easy prey,” Jerot continued. “We’ll run from anything we see.”

  “Isn’t that a bit paranoid?” Cranket asked.

  “I would call it cautious,” Jerot said. “If Merko catches us, we’re all dead, you included, simply for being with us.” It was a sober reminder of the threat Merko still had over all of us.

  We sailed north and into the bay near where Lina lived. I was surprised at how easily we found where to anchor to go to Lina’s hometown. As Jerot was telling me how to use my enhancing to get in close, he explained that he copied Merko’s maps and brought them with him. “Merko’s magic made him able to remember how far away things were, but he put them on maps for greater clarity. Knowing something is a certain distance away with a specific heading is not the same as having a picture of the whole. He was very meticulous about drawing his maps and I was very careful not to let him know I copied them. I brought some of the copies with me, but Cranket is having the others copied.”

  They would be very valuable to a sailor. My father often complained about inaccurate maps.

  Lina’s former home was about a mile inland, and there was no dock. We brought a tiny rowboat with us. Roddy and Lina took it ashore. Several hours later they returned with their reports.

  “No pirates,” Roddy said. “Her former neighbors thought she came to show me off. I marveled that the town let such a prize leave and acted the infatuated husband.”

  They exchanged smiles that spoke of happiness and intimacy.

  We continued north. I enhanced and Cranket was impressed with the speed we attained and considered hiring enhancers for his ships. We finally came into the Ship Town’s harbor. It was midday, but there were no boats in the harbor. When I lived there before, at least one boat would be unloading fish. The dock and the stone bridge over the stream were both intact, which I considered a good sign, but the lack of boats worried me.

  After docking the Mercy, Roddy and I went ashore into town, feeling that familiar faces would be less threatening. At first, I thought there was no damage, but I when we reached the Pelican, which was the building closest to the dock, I saw it didn’t have shutters and the door was gone. Looking out among the buildings, few had shutters or doors. Some had split logs crammed into the windows, which might keep in most of the heat, but would be inconvenient when light was needed. Two houses that once had glass windows also had logs instead of shutters. The glass must be broken.

  “Beaden,” Roddy said upon seeing the local priest/fisherman. “What happened?”

  “Roddy, Heleen! It’s wonderful to see you,” Beaden said. “It was pirates. They came, and they destroyed. They killed five people, but most of us ran to the mountains.” He named the people. I knew all of them, of course, but none of them were particularly close to me. “They burnt the wheat and tore down almost every shutter and door. They built a bonfire and burned them, throwing in blankets and clothing from almost every house. They grabbed tools and nails. They even took an anvil. There’s only one fishing boat left. It was out to sea when they came. It was that big red-haired man that was here before. The one who was with that man who hired you.”

  “Kalten,” I said.

  “Did you know he became a pirate?” Beaden asked.

  “He didn’t become a pirate,” I said. “He was one. I didn’t find out until I was on an island weeks away from here. It’s my fault that they attacked you.”

  “You don’t get all the blame,” Roddy said. “Merko’s probably just as mad at me.”

  “Why?” Beaden asked.

  “I’ll tell you, but there’s a ship to unload,” I said. “We brought some things for the town. Perhaps we could get some help.”

  It didn’t take long for the men from town to unload the Mercy. Meanwhile, I went to the Pelican and found to my surprise it was only slightly damaged. Well, only slightly damaged if I ignored the fire damage from Merko covering up his killing my parents. I wondered that he left it but realized that he knew I took with me everything I valued.

  I suspected that another reason it was undamaged was the lack of things to burn. Wooden beams supported the slate roof, but it would be hard to set them on fire. The walls of the tavern and my room were brick, although my parents’ bedroom was a later addition built of wood. It would be hard work to do significant damage to the main tavern. I took a tallow candle and found the ceramic cup my mother used to hold such candles and used it to heat the large brick stove that was part of the counter that my father built. It was a solid block of firebricks.

  There was an oven to one side of the counter, where a small fire would be used to cook without using enhancing. With a fire burning there, I could heat the bricks almost instantly. They were built to withstand intense heat. But a candle would get them hot, eventually. I was concerned there might be a shortage of fuel, so a candle would cook our meal and warm the room.

  Cranket entered the Pelican and said with surprise, “It’s warm in here.”

  “Enhancing,” I said. “It takes a while, but I can cook a meal with a candle here.”

  “Onboard the Mercy you just cooked by putting the heat directly in the pot.”

  “I’m doing that some too, just to get the water boiling,” I said. “Milea and I are making soup. After I get the bricks hot, it’ll simmer for a while without me.” I didn’t bother explaining that there was good reason to keep heat limited to the inside of a pot when I was on a wooden ship. “Stand next to the bricks if you’re cold but be careful not to burn yourself.” He came closer, hovering his hands over the bricks. I don’t know if it was to warm his hands or to check to see how hot the bricks were.

  I made bread too, nothing fancy, just plain bread. I wouldn’t say the whole town came, but there were as many people as could fit. Someone told them what to expect and they brought their cups, which I filled with soup while Milea handed them a hunk of bread. I ran out of soup, but the people who came late seemed content with bread. The faces looked leaner than before. I don’t think anyone was starving, but food was scarce.

  Roddy and I told them everything. They had a right to know. Vlid, Jerot, Milea, and Lina corroborated and added detail when necessary. Milea was open about her sleeping with the pirates. I wondered how hard it was for her to do that. Cranket looked shocked when she spoke of it. I hope his shock wouldn’t make him think less of her.

  When I got to the point about Controlling Kalten, I said, “I couldn’t stop Vlid from attacking Merko, but my Controlling magic worked with Kalten. My father never told you he had the magic. I don’t think he used it much.�
��

  “Oh, he used it,” said Beaden. “We didn’t have the right name for it. We called it dominating. Most of us knew about it, though.”

  “He used it? He told me I shouldn’t use it, or people would be mad at me.”

  A woman said, “He let me have a free drink every night for a couple of months. Then he told me to stop drinking. I couldn’t bring myself to drink for almost a year after that. I discovered I liked being sober and never have more than one mug of ale a day.”

  “He gave my children and me free meals for a few months after my wife died,” said the blacksmith. “He then told me I had to learn how to cook or marry.”

  I knew he remarried and wondered what his wife thought of that. She was smiling at his side and said, “He’s a better cook than I am.”

  “My fishing boat was sunk in a storm,” said a man. “He gave me money to replace it, but said I had to spend two weeks every summer digging the channel to reroute the Sweetwater. It took me years to pay off that debt.” The Sweetwater was the name of the stream that fed the mill. “People gave me credit when they opened the mill again, but it was your father.”

  “I also spent time digging that channel,” said someone else. “I cursed your father with every shovelful.”

  “Not to mention the nine mile walk to where he had us dig,” Roddy said.

  I looked at him in surprise. “You too? But you knew?” I remember him telling me about my father Controlling him.

  “I was in pretty bad shape after my first wife died.” He glanced apologetically at Lina. “It hit me hard. The Captain saw that I was taken care of.” Lina took his hand and smiled at him. “I spent several weeks in the camp we built up there, living off fish and berries. I resolved I would work my debt off all at once. I would rather carry one heavy bag of grain off a ship than do it a cupful at a time.”