WHEN LYNN WOKE, the first thing she did was to streeeetch, in one long motion, arching her feet down to the bottom of the bunk, and then shaking her whole body out. Her face bore the dreamy smile of someone who didn’t have to get out of bed for at least four hours more.
“I dreamed about armadillos,” she announced. “You might want to make a note of that. It’s probably very meaningful. What’s the matter?”
She always knew. I bit my lip.
“Darren,” she said. “Spill. You brood ten times more than could possibly be healthy for a person of your size and weight. Let’s have it.”
Now, I am a person who knows how to talk. Back when I was a merchant captain, before piracy came into the picture, I haggled and bargained in half the major cities on the continent. On a good day, I could sell a man his own shoes and make him feel as if he’d gotten the better end of the deal. And I wasn’t just a merchant, either. I acted as an envoy for the House of Torasan, representing it in councils and conclaves. I once critiqued a baron’s tax policy so brutally that he dissolved into tears, right there at the table. Yet, somehow, when I try to have a conversation about that kind of thing, I always end up stammering and gulping like a half-wit child trying to recite the times table.
“I just . . . you see . . . well, Lynn . . . You know, sometimes, you know, it’s the morning after, and we . . . you know . . . the night before, and it just makes me wonder whether I . . . you know, whether I . . .”
“This again.” She rolled to face me. “For the thousandth time, Darren, you’re just fine in bed, and you’ll be even better once you learn to relax.”
“It’s . . . not . . . that,” I said stiffly. “I just . . . mean . . . I want to make sure . . . Is this what you want, Lynn? Are you getting anything out of this?”
She didn’t answer right away, but gave a deep sigh. Then she tossed the blankets aside and hopped out of the bunk. My heart plunged. “You aren’t, are you? You’re humouring me, or I pressured you somehow, or—”
“Hang on,” she said, coming back to the bunk with a full wine cup. “I think you need to get at least a little squiffy if we’re going to talk about this.”
I took the cup, stared at the glassy gold surface. “Why?”
“Because you’re shy. Take three good swallows, and then I’ll answer you.”
I had to force the stuff down. It was the godawful kind spiked with pine resin, and it had a bitter, oily tang. Lynn wiped a drop from the corner of my lip before she went on.
“Mistress, a good rule of thumb for the future. If a girl is yelling ‘More, more, more’ while clawing all the skin off your back? Odds are, she’s getting something out of it.”
I rolled my shoulders. Now that she mentioned it, my back did sting a little. “But—”
“Look at me, please.”
She didn’t wait; she lifted my chin gently with two fingers. “What did you and Jess do in bed?”
My eyes slid away, trying to find something to focus on that wasn’t Lynn’s face. Is it normal to have to tell your new lover what you did with your old one? “The usual, I guess. She would . . . and then I would . . . and then we would . . . well, you know . . . together. It was . . . nice.”
“I’m glad. Darren, listen. It’s all right to want something other than nice.”
Maybe the boat was about to sink, I mused. If not, maybe I could sink it. Anything to get me out of this conversation. Almost unconsciously, I looked around for a hatchet.
“Did you enjoy what we did last night?” Lynn continued, unmoved.
I found a fascinating piece of lint on the blanket to pick at.
“I’d like you to answer out loud, please. It’ll only take one word. One syllable. Three letters at most.”
It took a minute or so, but I did manage it. “Yes.”
“How much?”
I snapped. “A lot. All right? A huge unhealthy whack of a lot.”
“Thank you,” she said solemnly. “So did I. So much that I’ll probably go around the ship today wearing a large silly grin.”
I snorted softly. Her hand found its way into mine. “We both want this, Mistress. We both get something out of it. We never do anything that I haven’t agreed to. So what the hell is the problem?”
There was a loud, squawking chorus of voices in my head, which sounded something like seagulls and something like my maiden aunts. All of them seemed to agree very heartily that there was a problem. Then again, neither seabirds nor my elderly relations had a tendency to give good advice. My quick-witted, self-assured partner, on the other hand, did.
“I guess you’re right,” I said.
She tugged a lock of my hair. “I generally am.”
Someone gave two sharp raps at the door. “Coming up on Freemarket, captain!”
FREEMARKET. I ADMIT, it makes me a little nostalgic to remember Freemarket. How to describe the place? Well, it wasn’t exactly a market, and it sure as hell wasn’t free. It was a mid-sized island, roughly in the centre of the Kilan archipelago. Back then, the whole island was carpeted by shops, taverns, and vendor-stalls, with a fringe of docks and harbours running the length of the coastline. The purpose of every single person who lived there was to separate you from your money as quickly and pleasantly as possible. You could buy literally anything at the Freemarket, from a boatload of salt to a lizard so big you could put a saddle on it and ride it down the street.
The prices there were as dizzyingly high as any you could ever hope to scream at, and the quality of the goods was nothing to celebrate—the ale was sub-par, the wine unspeakable. Yet it was always rammed with ships desperate to pour money into its coffers. Back then, you see, the market truce was still intact. Within the harbours of the Freemarket, you could dock next to a captain whom you’d cheerfully strangle on any other day, and both of you would still be intact the next morning. You could meet your worst enemy at a fish vendor’s storefront, and both of you would nod your heads grimly and pass by without drawing a weapon. You paid for the truce through the nose, as you paid for everything else—a stiff tax to the harbourmasters and local watch. It was worth it for a chance to rummage through a cheese stall without forever looking over one shoulder.
It was about three years afterwards that the Freemarket burned. I don’t remember the name of the man who did it, but that hardly matters. He was just one more bastard who thought that the world would be improved by a little extra fear and flame. I went after him, of course, but unfortunately for him, I wasn’t the one who got him in the end. You offend a whole lot of people when you break market truce, and not all of them are as reasonable as I am. By the time I caught up with him, his own ship was burning, and he was nailed to the prow as a figurehead, his mouth and eye-sockets stuffed full of red-hot cinders. I couldn’t get the smell out of my clothes for weeks . . . But I’m getting ahead of myself. Point is, all this happened when Freemarket was still whole, before some jackass with a barrel of oil and a burning torch decided that our lives needed a few extra complications.
IT WAS A bright, breezy, dew-fresh morning when Lynn and I came up on deck. Regon had already docked and moored the Banshee on the east side of the island, an easy walk from the shipwrights. Vendors’ tents stood along the path, rippling in the light wind. They were of all colours from turquoise to lemon-yellow to scarlet to emerald, and carnival-bright banners streamed from their central poles. Smells came rippling from the food hawkers’ stoves—grilled chicken, cumin, garlic, fresh-baked bread, honey, sun-warmed strawberries. I drank in the aromas, inhaling so hard that I almost fell backwards.
But Lynn was frowning, rubbing at one of her elbows. “We’re in for bad weather today.”
I frowned myself. “I thought it was your right arm that ached before a storm?”
“Actually, they both do. The right one is a little bit worse most of the time, that’s all.”
“Why is that, anyway? Did they get broken?”
“A long time ago.” Lynn took a deeply suspicious look at the clou
dless sky. “You should get on with it. Shopping isn’t going to be nearly as much fun once it starts pissing down.”
“Yeah, I’m going. Do you want to come with me?”
I said this very casually and waited to see what threadbare excuse she would produce this time around.
“I’d like to, Darren, but I should probably rest this.” Lynn moved her sore arm limply. “I’m starting to get a headache, too. Not my day, I guess. You go ahead. I’ll stay and watch things here.”
I would like to pause at this point to share something about women that it took me a very long time to learn. If your girl tells you that she has a headache, she is sending you a message in code. The message is that she wants to play a game, and the game is called, “Figure out what is bothering me by reading my mind.” If you fail to guess right, you lose. If you do guess right, you still lose, because you should have known that something was bothering her before she said anything. Either way, be prepared to set aside a couple of hours for back rubs and apologies.
Jess, who was my lover back in the dark ages, used to be very fond indeed of this game. Lynn didn’t play it all that often, except when we were at the Freemarket. We’d made fifteen trips to the market in the past year, and every time, there was something. Sometimes it was a headache, sometimes it was cramps; a pulled muscle, sunstroke. Or she had to clean the galley stove, or she wanted a nap, or it was high time for her to organize my charts of the Outer Isles. Whatever it was, the outcome was the same: Lynn never put a foot on shore.
It had worried me in the beginning, but after fifteen repetitions, I’d sailed straight past worried to annoyed, and I was now in hailing distance of just plain pissed. I suppressed a sigh.
“Don’t sulk,” Lynn told me. “You can manage to buy a few barrels of biscuit without my supervision. I have full confidence. But just in case . . .”
I was wearing my good blue coat that day. A little swagger never came amiss in Freemarket. Lynn held me at arm’s length so she could inspect me, adjusted the cloth here and there, did up a button that had come undone, and then carefully took me by the lapels.
“Lynn,” I objected.
She ignored that. “If anyone recognizes you as an exile and gives you a hard time, what do you do?”
“Give them the hairy eyeball,” I recited sullenly.
“And if that doesn’t work?”
This was too humiliating for words. A few of my sailors were standing about smirking; Regon was leaning against the mast, hands jammed in his pockets, clearly loving every second. There were five men watching, and I made a mental note of their names, reminding myself to take the time to pound some respect back into them later. So what if Lynn tyrannized over me every now and then? It was still my damn fleet, wasn’t it? Me am boss.
“Darren,” Lynn repeated, in the don’t-mess-with-me-I’ve-seen-you-naked voice. “What if the hairy eyeball doesn’t work?”
I surrendered. “I find the nearest watchman and offer to pay him a week’s salary if he makes my enemies bleed a lot. I can handle myself, you know.”
“No, Mistress, you can’t,” she corrected me, with a pat on the cheek. “And you shouldn’t be allowed to try. Take Latoya, and a squad of ten men, and don’t sneak away from them this time.”
Regon’s smirk was diabolical by then, but it was wiped instantly off of his face when Lynn wheeled on him. “And you. Why are you still awake? Your watch was over hours ago. You think my mistress has the time to come and pick you up if you faint and pitch overboard? Get the hell to your hammock, now.”
He raised his hands in defeat. “I’m going. I’m gone.”
“Pirates,” Lynn muttered, as Regon shuffled for the stairs. “If you had brains, you’d be dangerous.” Then she cast another glance at the sky. “I’m serious about the weather, Mistress. You really should get going. And . . . be careful? Please?”
“I’ll be careful,” I promised. “Don’t you worry about it. Just rest. Put something cool on your head, huh?”
“Why would I want to put something cool on my—” she began automatically, and then, too late, she remembered. “Oh, right.” She laid a hand unconvincingly against her forehead. “Right, yes, I’ll do that, right.”
“HEADACHE!” I SNARLED, disgusted, as I strode into the market. “Does she think I’m a moron, Latoya?”
Latoya wisely chose not to answer that. Or maybe she was out of breath, since she was lugging a haversack of coins which was about as heavy as a good-sized pig. My other bodyguards were further back, moving casual-like through the crowds just in case anyone got too interested in me.
At the moment, the crowds all seemed to be busy with the Freemarket’s other attractions. It was only ten in the morning, but the hawkers were already setting out lunch. Every stall held giant wooden trays crammed with food—tender lamb hissing hot on skewers, chunks of spicy sausage dusted with herbs, cherry pastries oozing with juice, sherbet cooled with crushed ice, candied nuts, golden rolls crusted with roasted onions. And then there were the drinks—red wine, white wine, plum wine, ginger wine, blossom wine, malt beer, spruce beer, cider . . . everything from syrupy cordials to a clear fluid which smelled like brimstone and tasted like lightning. All of which I ignored, since a single square meal at the Freemarket was more expensive than a banquet on the mainland. Even water cost money at the market.
My stomach was gurgling plaintively, though. To take my mind off that, I continued my rant.
“A headache isn’t even a good excuse to begin with,” I went on. “The fifteenth time around, it’s pathetic. It’s not like Lynn to be so feeble. And what’s the point? Lynn likes food, she likes people, she likes bossing me around. Why wouldn’t she want to come to the market with me?”
“She’s afraid,” Latoya said bluntly.
This made me grind to a halt in the middle of the street. I hadn’t expected her to answer. Latoya was not a chatty individual. Most of the time, talking to her was like talking to a wall, with these two differences: first, walls normally don’t wear trousers, and second, walls aren’t secretly smarter than I am. I think. I hope.
“What do you mean?” I asked her. “Afraid of what?”
Latoya, not being one to use words when a gesture would do the trick, shrugged. I attempted to translate. “She’s afraid of something but you don’t know what?”
Latoya’s eyelid flickered, sort of affirmatively.
“But how can you tell?”
Another shrug.
I sighed, while absent-mindedly fending off the hawkers who had come to swarm around me now that I was standing still. It was pretty easy to get rid of the perfume seller. He backed off at the first good snarl. The fish merchant turned out to be made of stronger stuff, though. I had to stomp on his feet to make him stop trying to stuff dried herring in my pockets.
“It would help if you could be a bit more explicit, you know,” I said, once the fish merchant was in full retreat. “With, you know, words and things. Or you could use puppets, whatever. But the shrugging gets to be exasperating. Why is Lynn afraid?”
“It’s none of my business, Captain,” Latoya said. Which, by the way, was the longest sentence that had come out of her mouth in a month. “She’s your girl, right?”
DAMN STRAIGHT SHE was my girl. Fine. Screw Latoya. I would figure this out all on my own. Me am lover as well as boss. Me am love boss.
I chewed away at the problem while we did business with the shipbroker. We weren’t there long, but it was long enough to empty Latoya’s haversack of money. To re-stock a ship in a war zone, it took a back-breaking load of hard-earned coin . . . or hard-stolen coin, in my case. Piracy had done a lot to fix my cash flow problem.
Before I got into the lucrative business of beating people up and stealing their stuff, I had to rely on Jess to supply me with ropes and paint and oil and wine and biscuits. She did it, out of the goodness of her landlubber heart, but it was a relief to be free from her charity now. No need to grumble out ungracious-sounding thanks every ti
me I saw her, while staring down at the toecaps of my boots so I didn’t have to see her face. No need to suffer through those patronizing lectures, in which she told me that maybe she didn’t have the right to an opinion now that we were through, but in her personal view, I was drinking far too much.
Oh, Jess still had a hand in things. Along with Holly, her new partner-type-thingy, she maintained my secret harbour on the mainland and found homes for some of the refugees I rescued. I was grateful for the help, but not dependent on it, not any more. That was one accomplishment that did give me a sense of triumph.
I didn’t have much to do at the shipbroker’s. Corto, the quartermaster, did the actual bargaining; Latoya inspected the goods and counted out the cash. My job was to stand with crossed arms and scowl, and add a little sneer every now and then, as I thought appropriate.
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