The Buccaneer's Apprentice

by V. Briceland

  As for the ship’s figurehead, which had the look of gnarled roots twisting from a thirsty tree to a river’s edge, by the evening of the second day of the voyage, its face was visible from beneath the knobby morass. Smooth and feminine it was, with eyes that seemed to pierce the falling darkness to find the way home. Staring at her, Nic could almost imagine that the gilded wooden carving had been the source of that relentless questioning voice that still at times haunted his thoughts.

  Maxl had assured them that, according to the maps he’d brought with him, Maarten’s Folly should reach Cassaforte on the morning of their fourth day. It was on the night before that Darcy knocked upon the door of the captain’s quarters and let herself in. “There is something very odd about this boat,” she announced.

  Nic cocked his head. He had been sitting at the captain’s writing desk, which had been stocked full of paper. One of his boats, delicate and intricate in its folds, was still in his hands. “Please don’t tell me you’re just now noticing.”

  Darcy reconsidered her words. “Odder than … what we’re used to. Did you know that Maxl says it should take at least forty men to do the work that ten of us are doing?” Nic nodded. Maxl had repeated the same words to him many a time, usually with befuddlement in his voice. “Our anchor is enormous, Niccolo. You saw it. By all rights we should still be back in Gallina, still trying to shift it from the harbor bed. Ingenue and Infant Prodigy and I aren’t exactly Ursos in size, you know. Yet it came up as if we’d been trying to winch nothing more than a bundle of wet wool.” She began moving around the room, examining its rich mahogany paneling. Her fingers ran over the weathered table in its center. “When we do that thing with the sails to rein them in …”

  “When you trim them?” Nic automatically supplied the correct term. Not that he’d known, two weeks before.

  “Yes, when we’re trimming the sails, it’s something that Infant Prodigy and I can do ourselves. Nic, that shouldn’t be. It took twice as many to rein in those sails on the Korfu, and the winds are stronger here than they were in that part of the sea.” She wasn’t exaggerating. The waters closer to Cassaforte had been stormy and sometimes wild. “It’s almost as if—Nic, what do you know about the blessings and signs? You know, what the Seven and Thirty do. It’s what sets them apart from the rest of us. In return for their service to the country, the seven families of the cazas and Cassaforte’s thirty noble families of craftsmen are trained in the appropriate prayers and signs of the gods to make.”

  “For their enchantments, yes.” Nic didn’t understand why Darcy was telling him things a child of two knew, in Cassaforte. “It’s what made the Legnoli costume trunk different from any old chest. It held more because it had been blessed to enhance its natural purpose.” Nic still felt a twinge of guilt whenever he thought of the present he’d left behind for Trond Maarten, in that trunk aboard the Tears of Korfu.

  “But listen. When we had the fire at the nuncial house, last year, workers from Caza Portello came to Côte Nazze to oversee the repairs in the damaged rooms. Do you know how long it took? Less than a week.” Nic shook his head. It was all mildly interesting, but he didn’t see where Darcy was going with any of it. “Much of the damage they didn’t have to repair,” she told him. “They laid their hands on it. They made the signs and whispered the prayers. Niccolo, the wood slowly repaired itself. It was as if … I don’t know, exactly. It was as if the blessings returned what was taken away by the flames. The tapestries, the windows all had to be replaced—they weren’t Divetri windows—but everything that had been of Portello, the structure, seemed … healed.” She waited to see if he drew any conclusions.

  Nic thought about it. “And you think this ship is like that? Healing itself?”

  “No. Not at all. I think you’re right about the ship being of Cassaforte. That much is obvious. As you said, look at it. It was made by craftsmen.” She gestured all about the room, indicating the ornate curved ceiling, the vault over the bay window with its wood-sculpted seat, and then the table itself, with its gryphon-shaped legs gazing fiercely in every direction. “I think the ship has been blessed. Perhaps I’ll sound mad when I say this, but I think it knows who we are. I think it’s trying to help us get home.”

  Nic was so startled that he stood up from the desk. He remembered the voice insistently demanding his identity. He’d even told it he’d wanted to return home. “No,” he said, hushed. “I believe you. You’re right.”

  “It makes sense. It’s the only way it could be working so smoothly with only a skeleton crew. I think this ship could find its way home even if we were all simply sitting on the deck having a picnic and playing taroccho. It was built with the enchantments, and it’s simply fulfilling its natural, primary purpose. It was built by Caza Piratimare, of the Seven.”

  Darcy’s theory was so logical that Nic was astounded he hadn’t thought of it before. No one had really spoken aloud about the galleon’s strange way of correcting mistakes and making labor as easy as possible, perhaps out of a fear that drawing attention to it might cause it to cease. “I’m not of the Seven and Thirty,” he said slowly. A chill spread up his spine, and dissipated right above his collar, making him shiver. “Nor have I ever had much to do with their enchanted objects. So I don’t know what I think about that. It’s spooky.”

  “It is a little spooky, but it shouldn’t be. It’s just what this ship was built to do, by the craftsmen of Piratimare. It’s what it is.”

  “Why did you tell me about the nuncial house, though, if you don’t think the ship’s repairing itself?” Nic asked.

  For the first time that voyage, Darcy looked at him with mingled pity and scorn. “The ship’s not repairing itself,” she sighed. “Don’t you see? I think you’re repairing it.” Nic blinked, stunned. “Look around!” she said. “What parts of the ship have come back to life first?”

  “The deck, I suppose,” he said slowly, thinking about it. “The captain’s quarters.”

  Her voice was like a stern school teacher’s. “Correct. The quarterdeck, where you spend your days. The quarterdeck, where you stand at the ship’s wheel and make adjustments to our course, and see that things are done. And the captain’s quarters, where you sleep and eat. In other words, the two parts of the ship where you spend the most time.”

  As Darcy talked, Nic flexed his fingers. He remembered the way the deck’s wood had seemed to sing beneath his fingertips, the first time he’d touched it. It still sang to him now, every time he took the wheel. “That can’t be.”

  “What do you know of your mother? Your father?” Before Nic could speak, she supplied the answer. “Nothing. Who’s to say that one of them wasn’t of Caza Piratimare? Perhaps your mother was a disgraced cazarrina who left her insula because she was large with child? Or what if you were the bastard son of a cazarrino who never knew he’d gotten his lady love pregnant?”

  A flush had crept into Nic’s face the moment Darcy began talking of his parentage. “Every poor child dreams that his parents are princes and princesses. This is the sort of invention you might find in one of Signor Arturo’s plays.” To Nic’s surprise, his throat sounded more choked than he would have supposed. He took a deep breath and tried to continue. “It is not my life.”

  “Oh, of course.” Darcy stood upright and curtsied with mock formality. She crossed the room to the door, and let her hands rest on the latch. “Of course it’s not your life. Your life is much more mundane. Shipwrecks. Pirates. Deserted islands. Curses on ships that only you among scores of men can dispel. Forgive me for assuming you are anything special, after so much normality.” Noting that she’d left him speechless, Darcy opened the latch to let herself out. “Oh, Niccolo?” she asked, all innocence. “What is that in your hands, anyway?”

  “Why … just a paper boat.”

  “Oh, I see. A paper boat. Like every other paper boat you’ve built?” Her eyes traveled around t
he room, taking in the little paper sculptures that lay upon every flat surface. “Like the paper boats you’ve made ever since I’ve known you? How long have you been making those paper boats, Nic?”

  “All …” He gulped. “All my life.”

  “Interesting,” she said, her voice level. “It comes so naturally to you. I wonder where you get the urge? Hmmm. Well. Good night.”

  She had made her point. Nic tossed the scrap of paper that was in his hands onto the table, as if it burned. That hadn’t been fair. Building the little boats was simply something he did with his hands, to keep them from being idle when he was alone. It was harmless. It didn’t mean anything. It only transformed unwanted scraps into something better. Something no one else ever imagined for them.

  By the time Nic thought to follow Darcy, to contradict her, she had vanished from the deck and gone down below. He didn’t make pursuit.

  Darcy had been unfair, to set his heart aflutter like that. She’d been unwise to give him such hope. It would be marvelous to be of Piratimare blood. To have sprung from one of Cassaforte’s famed Seven families would be an immense reversal of fortune. He wandered outdoors in the direction of the ship’s prow, his hands idly tracing the railing as he walked. In his mind’s eye he could see the scene as written into one of Signor Arturo’s dramas. Hero would wander across the Caza Piratimare bridge in the humblest of his clothes, while the Piratimare family (played by Signor Arturo as Vecchio, and the Signora in her most resplendent and waist-cinching of dresses) waited with open arms and tear-stained faces at the bridge’s end. Pulcinella, as the family’s housemaid, would have prepared a feast that could have fed most of the city. Infant Prodigy would have the role of the younger sister, given to performing cartwheels around the massive table. Even the most hardened of men would be hard-pressed not to reach for his handkerchief, at the sight of so many sunny faces and so happy an ending as that.

  A sudden break in the waves brought Nic back to reality. The galleon had run into choppy waters, throwing him off-balance. From the quarterdeck, illuminated by the stern lights, Maxl threw his captain a cheerful wave and began whistling. He pointed in a direction beyond Nic, then curled his fist and pointed his thumb to the heavens. Nic turned to see what Maxl had been so happy about. In the distance he finally spied lights. Small clusters of them, steady and unmoving, burning brightly against the dark. Cassaforte.

  They were nearly home. Nic’s heart pounded at the realization. That scene he’d imagined moments before could be a reality before the week’s end. He could easily be that prodigal son returned to the Piratimare fold, loved and accepted, finally enfolded within the embrace of a family. A noble family at that. But to what end? The ship lurched uncertainly in the rough waters as he thought about it. The family he’d gain would all be strangers to him. Likely they would shut him up in some sort of insula to teach him the craft of shipbuilding, the moment he joined the clan—though wasn’t there some kind of ritual selection process for that, and wasn’t he too old for it? He knew so little about the Seven. Certainly he’d never have the opportunity to see the Arturos again, nor Maxl, nor even Renaldo and Michaelo if he’d been able to track them down once more. Hadn’t they been more family to him during the worst of times than any Piratimare?

  What else? To Nic a roast fowl leg and a mug of hard cider was feast enough. The costume he wore now, with its high boots and white shirt, had suited him fine. And was it really his fantasy to vault from servant boy to commander of servants? He couldn’t envision it, try as he might. He knew too well what it was like to endure the commands of those bent on satisfying their own pleasures, ever to have servants of his own. His captaincy had been different; he had been alongside the crew the entire time. The orders might have seemed to come from him, but he was working just as hard as they to achieve their common goal. No, if becoming one of the Seven meant accepting the ministrations of servants, he could never join their ranks.

  The galleon heaved up and down as it sailed forward, bringing closer the lights of his home city. Cassaforte looked peaceful by night. Hundreds of lights dotted its shores, from boats at rest and, higher, from the cazas upon the seven islands surrounding the city. Even more shone from the city’s center, setting the sky before him aglow. Nic grinned at the sight, so glad he was for it. He also laughed a little at himself, for allowing himself to be seduced with the vision of a life that would never—could never—be his own.

  He ran his hands over the rails so he could feel the wood beneath his skin sing out at his touch. This galleon, wherever it had come from, needed him. For now, that was all he needed to know about who he was.

  For several moments he watched the dancing lights from the city and listened to Maxl’s cheerful chanty, whistling in the background. Then he cocked his head, curious. Some of those lights should not have been dancing at all. “Maxl,” he called, snapping his fingers. “Bring me the spyglass.”

  It was in his hand a moment later. “I am never being to Cassafort City before,” Maxl announced, looking over Nic’s shoulder. “I am hearing it is beautiful, for a city of savages and magicians.”

  Nic spent a moment adjusting the glass. The lights he’d seen shouldn’t have been there. He swore an oath beneath his breath, but refused to panic. He’d been brought home for a reason, and already he’d found it. “Sound the bell,” he commanded Maxl. “All hands on deck immediately. Cassaforte’s on fire.”

  Soft living does not a brave man make.

  —An old Cassafortean saying

  I cannot believe it has come to this.” Jacopo Colombo slumped against the rail, one hand pressed to his forehead. He looked as if he might be about to weep. “It is beyond all dreaming.”

  A stiff crosswind had sprung up to match the roiling waters. The galleon’s crew went stumbling toward the aft as the ship pitched up. The main mast sails began flapping crazily as those who had been adjusting them lost hold of their ropes. “Trim those!” Nic barked out, a split second before Maxl could. “And stand ready. We don’t know all that’s happening yet.” Signor Arturo, Knave, and Urso scrambled at his command.

  “Pays d’Azur has besieged the city!” Jacopo protested. “We are too late!”

  Nic paused only so that he could address Jacopo directly. “That is impossible. You know very well that Comte Dumond’s warships could not have reached Cassaforte before us. Take a look.” He thrust the spyglass into the old man’s hands so that he could see for himself. Six of the city’s magnificent naval vessels burned where they had been anchored. It was their sails and masts that flamed so brilliantly against the night sky. Great clouds of black smoke were beginning to billow to the heavens from their hulls, blackening the purple and brown silk banners flying from their masts.

  Alight too was the southern port complex, and many of the boats docked there. Though the waves and wind obscured any sounds that might have been coming from shore, Nic could imagine the chaos. Smaller boats as yet untouched by the fires had been loosed from their moorings and drifted, unmanned, to collide and drift away from danger. Merchant ships desperately trying to escape the conflagrations pushed between them. Nic could only pity anyone caught in the confusion. “Good gods,” muttered Jacopo.

  Darcy happened to be running by with a coil of rope in her arms just then. “Every hand is needed now,” she informed her father. She grabbed the spyglass from him and thrust it back at Nic as she passed. “Especially in a time like this.”

  “Go,” Nic told them both. Then, to Jacopo, he said, “We’ll get through this.” The nuncio nodded, though he didn’t seem convinced when he accompanied his daughter to the foremast.

  Once again the ship pitched up in the water, then plunged down. This time, the crew was not caught off-guard. Nic was so attuned to the galleon’s motions that he managed to stride to the quarterdeck without clutching at anything for support. He sprinted up the stairs, took hold of the ship’s wheel, and adjusted the rud
der. Maxl watched, then commented, “You are not wanting to go into the city?”

  “Into that pandemonium? Not likely.” Nic peered through the glass again, focusing on the outer edge of the upheaval.

  “No huzzah, huzzah, whupping the Azurites? No paying the back?” Maxl sounded a little disappointed.

  “Those aren’t Azurites,” Nic said. From time to time he could see little arcs of fire shooting from small craft to their targets. “I think they’re pirates. I’m willing to wager that the Tears of Korfu was not the only band of buccaneers the comte approached to do his dirty work.” Another small arc of twirling fire flew from a little cutter. The vessel had sliced its way through the waters to the side of one of the merchant vessels, where it had launched its deadly missile. Nic saw an explosion of flame aboard the merchant ship’s deck. There was a flurry of motion as its crew scattered to escape. Several appeared to jump overboard. Nic lowered the glass and handed it to Maxl. “What manner of weapons are they using?”

  It took Maxl a moment, but very soon he had an answer. “I am not knowing what to be calling it in your tongue. For us, we call it the Device Infernal,” he said. “But it is a bottle, yes? Of glass? And it is filled with spirits? Pure spirits, very easy to catch on fire. The top is stuffed with a rag. The rag is set on fire, so when it is thrown the bottle is breaking and sploosh.” Maxl made an exploding motion with his hands. “Very dirty fighting, it is being. No honor to it.” He spat on the deck. “Pirates from Ellada, it is their invention.”